EA’s Battlefront II features “reworked” heroes, “deeper” mechanics & no universal jump packs

Get set for Battlefront II to offer some new looks when compared to EA’s first attempt at the franchise.

I was lucky enough to attend a question-and-answer session with the game’s design director Dennis Brannvall after Saturday’s Battlefront II reveal at Star Wars Celebration. Brannvall touched on numerous topics (some of which I’ll go into more detail in later posts) and I figured I’d share a few of the more pressing matters.

First, Brannvall mentioned that the hero system has been revamped for Battlefront II, which comes out November 17.

“In general with heroes […] we’re moving towards much more physical combat, whether that’s lightsaber-to-lightsaber and also lightsaber towards a ranged user,” he said. “We’ve sort of reworked the entire combat system with heroes from the ground up. For Battlefront 1, we leaned on a lot of tech that we had from working in Frostbite and Battlefield, but we definitely felt like it was time to invest in a stronger core component for how heroes behave. So you’ll feel them be a lot more physical; you’ll feel stronger and more powerful even just running around as a hero.”

Kylo Ren force pushing an enemy.

He added that heroes will now “react to powerful abilities from enemies.” An example he gave is that there are “cool advancements” to how heroes react when being force pushed.

Other changes to the hero system include a lack of hero pickups scattered across the map.

“We’re moving away from pickups and randomized things that you find on levels,” Brannvall said. “Instead, we’re trying to move towards more of a skilled-based system on this [Battlefront]. As always, we want everyone to be able to become a hero once they’ve earned it, but if you’re a skilled player, there will be additional opportunities or you can play them more frequently.”

A member of Inferno Squad fires their weapon.

Beyond heroes, the general gunplay is promised to be deeper than the first Battlefront.

“It is […] a little more approachable audience for this game as always, compared to a more mature audience on Battlefield,” he said. “But at the same time, we know a lot of fans want deeper gunplay—more skill-based. We want the learner curve to be a little deeper. We want players to feel like this is their gun and can really make it [their] own. […] There’s going to be easy-to-learn blasters, but [they’ll be] much more difficult to master.”

Brannvall then confirmed that “there will be a difference” between aiming-down-sights and hip fire. In the first Battlefront, ADS didn’t give the player any advantage with aiming when compared to firing from the hip.

General progression is also planned to be deeper and more engaging.

“There’s a lot of stuff for you to unlock and customize and that’s our main way of making sure people can play this game for a long time,” he said. “We have a very long tail to our game. We are very passionate about supporting it post-launch. […] We want players to play for a long time so there will be a lot of cool stuff for you to unlock.”

AT-AT Walkers on the Imperial planet Vardos.

Players can also expect to see similar set-piece style battles to what Walker Assault offered the first Battlefront.

“We had some fun challenges trying to get [massive battles] into the other eras,” Brannvall said. “So there’s definitely going to be that type of epic experience.”

However, there’ll still be other options for players who prefer more intimate settings.

“People really appreciate a slightly smaller mission-type style of multiplayer where you almost feel like this could be an episode of Star Wars Rebels,” he said. “It’s still high-scale, but a little more intimate. Of course, we’ll have a hero experience and there will be something for pilots, too.”

A pair of TIE Fighters chase the Millennium Falcon.

Going into more specific details, vehicles won’t be landable like they are in the Battlefield franchise.

“We will not allow you to specifically land your starfighter,” Brannvall said. “But you can always escape it. It’s the same with all vehicles—you can exit them. But we will not have something where you specifically land it.”

This seems like vehicles may retain a similar mechanic to the one in the first Battlefront, but—as with heroes—without pickups.

“This time around, your life is something that you spawn in as something and that’s what you play and then spawn in the next time as something different,” he said. “In general, we’re moving away from kneeling down and becoming something. We’re moving away from ‘magical tokens’ on the planets.”

A jump pack can be seen in the Battlefront II trailer.

Finally, Brannvall confirmed that jump packs won’t be available to all characters in the game.

“I know [the jump pack] is a big sticking point on our subreddit right now,” he said. “I should confirm that they will not be something that all classes can use. They will be a specific thing for specific characters.”

Whether this means they are specific to a particular class or something else, Brannvall wasn’t clear. However, it’s good to know that we probably won’t see nearly everyone using the jump pack.

As a note, these topics were stated as “too early” to discuss at this time:

• A server browser and server rentals
• Seamless ground-to-space modes
• Galactic Conquest
• 4K compatibility with the Xbox Scorpio and PlayStation 4 Pro

There are a lot more things to pick through from the Q&A session and I’ll probably save those bits for later. So be on the look out for that!

(All images sourced from the Battlefront II reveal trailer)