Star Wars: Battlefront
Star Wars: Battlefront is a series of first- and third-person shooter video games based on the Star Wars franchise. Players take the role of characters from the franchise in either of two opposing factions in different time periods of the Star Wars universe. The series was launched in 2004 by LucasArts with Star Wars: Battlefront, developed by Pandemic Studios for LucasArts. The game received positive reviews and sold well. In 2005 Pandemic developed a sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront II, which was also critically and commercially successful.
The games were followed by Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron and Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron for handheld game consoles and Star Wars Battlefront: Mobile Squadrons for mobile devices. LucasArts made several attempts to develop a third major Battlefront game but no projects were released before The Walt Disney Company's acquisition of LucasArts. Subsequently, Electronic Arts acquired an exclusive license to develop console Star Wars titles from Lucasfilm, leading to the development of a reboot, titled Star Wars Battlefront from developer DICE, which was released on November 17, 2015. A sequel, Star Wars Battlefront II, was released on November 17, 2017, and was co-developed by EA DICE, Criterion Games, and Motive Studio. A collection of the first two entries in the original series was ported to modern platforms by Aspyr, titled Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, and was released on March 14, 2024.
Gameplay
Games in the Battlefront series normally revolve around two armies – the Galactic Republic versus the Confederacy of Independent Systems or the Galactic Empire versus the Rebel Alliance or First Order versus the Resistance – fighting each other on various maps. Maps take place in the Star Wars galaxy, with battlezones varying in theme and size. Across the battlefield are multiple "command posts" that act as spawn points, and can be controlled by either the player or the computer. Units can spawn from any friendly command post, and vehicles regularly spawn at their respective command posts when destroyed. Units can capture neutral or hostile command posts by approaching them and standing within the immediate vicinity for about 30 seconds. The time to capture quickens with more friendly units within the capture zone. Some vehicles act as mobile command posts, and must be destroyed as they can not be captured. On some maps, certain structures also act as command posts that can not be captured. Command post capturing works differently on certain campaign missions as well. Playable heroes and villains play a significant role in changing the course of battles.The objective of most matches is to eliminate all of the opponents' reinforcement tickets or to capture the command points, to slowly chip away at their tickets. Reinforcement tickets are used whenever a unit is killed, or when one faction controls a majority of the command posts on the map. Only one objective needs to be completed. When all command posts are captured, the team with no command posts has twenty seconds to recapture or neutralize an enemy command post. If the team cannot take over a post in this time, the match is over. Certain campaign levels and multiplayer have requirements that differ from the general game play, however the general structure remains the same. The game's "Conquest" mode is based on the Battlefield game mode of the same name.
Development
The first console games of the series were developed by Pandemic Studios, and since 2015, a second series of console Battlefront games has been developed by EA DICE. Battlefront II is the first in the series to accurately follow the canon of the films, while the games developed by Pandemic Studios were relegated to Star Wars Legends non-canonical status, along with all of the games in the series released before November 2015.''Star Wars: Battlefront'' (Pandemic Studios)
''Star Wars: Battlefront''
Star Wars: Battlefront is the first installment in the Battlefront series. It was released on September 21, 2004, with a Mac port by Aspyr released in July 2005. The game is available on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Mac OS, and mobile phones. Jedi are not playable in this game without the help of modified files unsupported by LucasArts. Other NPCs made playable by similar files include, but are not limited to, Tusken Raiders in the Dune Sea of Tatooine, Ewoks of Endor and Gungans on the Naboo plains.''Star Wars: Battlefront II''
Star Wars: Battlefront II is the second installment in the Battlefront series, released in Europe on October 31, 2005 – for the PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox, and Windows – and in North America one day later. There are some significant differences between Battlefront and Battlefront II. Battlefront II includes playable Jedi characters, space battles, and story campaigns, as well as Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith-related content. The release date of Battlefront II coincided with the release of Revenge of the Sith on DVD. The game is now an Xbox Platinum Hits game, a Sony Greatest Hits game in North America, and an Xbox Classics and PlayStation Platinum game in Europe.Battlefront II expands upon the original game's single-player experience with mission-based objectives drawn from the first six Star Wars films. It has a story-based campaign which revolves around the 501st Legion and its evolution from a legion of clone troopers serving the Republic during the Clone Wars to Imperial stormtroopers. Many maps from Star Wars Battlefront make a second appearance, and the game adds new locales such as Coruscant and Utapau. The game also introduces "heroes" – playable characters based on iconic characters from the Star Wars films who are much more powerful than regular soldier ; the hero roster includes Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Mace Windu, Ki-Adi Mundi and Aayla Secura, whereas the villain roster includes Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, Boba Fett, Count Dooku, General Grievous, Darth Maul, Jango Fett, and Anakin Skywalker. There are more modes in this game, such as Conquest, Hunt, Capture the Flag, Assault and space battles.
''Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection''
In February 2024, a collection of Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars: Battlefront II was announced for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. It features online multiplayer, a Galactic Conquest mode, an expanded Hero Assault mode, as well as additional characters and maps. It released on March 14, 2024, becoming the second game in the series to be available on a Nintendo platform after Elite Squadron on the Nintendo DS nearly fifteen years prior.Canceled sequels
''Star Wars: Battlefront III''
On September 29, 2006, Computer and Video Games made an unconfirmed claim that Free Radical Design was developing the third game in the Star Wars: Battlefront series, titled Star Wars: Battlefront III. In June 2008, Kotaku allegedly received information from a former LucasArts employee that Star Wars: Battlefront III was in the creation process. On October 2, Activision Blizzard filed a classification with the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification listing Star Wars: Battlefront III for the Nintendo DS with a PG rating for mild animated violence, equivalent to the ESRB's Everyone 10+ rating. However, that same month, Free Radical Design announced that they lost the rights to develop Star Wars: Battlefront III; the game at that point had been in development for two years. Several years later, Free Radical Design co-founder Steve Ellis said Battlefront III was "pretty much done" in 2008, but that it was effectively canned when LucasArts could not commit to "spend big" on marketing it. However, GameSpot quoted an unnamed LucasArts employee involved with the project who said Free Radical could not devote sufficient resources to the game and regularly missed deadlines. A former Free Radical Design employee said some of the technology Free Radical developed for the game, specifically the contiguous game environment from planet surface into space, "is dying with us".During and after the game's development, screenshots, and gameplay footage became accessible to the public. In December 2008, Star Wars character renders bearing a Battlefront III watermark surfaced from a laid-off Free Radical employee. The following month, gameplay footage was leaked from a November 2008 Free Radical in-house showing of Battlefront III footage. The footage was pulled from IGN after LucasArts demanded its removal. On April 1, 2012, a user on the game journalist website Betagames discovered Star Wars models and textures buried in Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon Citys archives; PC Gamers Tom Senior speculated that these could have been from Battlefront III. Also in April 2012, Past to Present revealed pre-alpha footage of Free Radical Design's Battlefront III. YouTube videos showing the game's rough state received media attention from outlets such as Joystiq, Kotaku, and Shacknews.
In December 2024, 16 years after the game's cancelation, a Wii build of the game was publicly released by the Free Radical Archive. The build in question was dated just a week before the game's ultimate cancelation. Among the many notable features included in the build included a Jedi Fighter flying from Coruscant to a space battle, which would have improved the immersion of space battles from the previous entries in the series.