It’s fair to say that Star Wars Battlefront II has significantly changed since its launch. The progression system has been overhauled and microtransactions were limited to cosmetic appearances, but more importantly, there has been new multiplayer maps, game modes and appearances. At EA’s E3 presentation, DICE took to the stage to reveal what’s next for the game and it involves plenty of new content, including an update from the Clone Wars era.
In the summer, the team will be introducing a new squad system, allowing players to more easily team up and play games with their friends. This will also allow players to spawn on their squad mates.
Then in July, the team will be adding a new 4v4 Starfighter mode with an emphasis on dogfighting in Hero ships. At the start of the game, players spawn as one of the available Hero Starfighters. If they’re taken out, they respawn as a fighter, bomber or interceptor. The winning team is the one that takes out all of the Hero Starfighters.
This mode will be followed later by a non-linear, larger-scale sandbox mode where players fight for control of command posts while taking out capital ships. Details on all of these updates will be provided when the team releases their development roadmap for the game sometime after the conclusion of the Han Solo Season at the end of this month.
However, you’re likely more interested in the update that will arrive after all of those. This fall, the team will be adding new heroes, villains, and locations from the Clone Wars era. One of the first locations will be the planet Geonosis and it will come with multiple levels, including “the largest level ever built for Battlefront”. Both General Grievous and Obi-Wan Kenobi will be joining the game as Hero characters, accompanied by Anakin Skywalker and Sith Lord and leader of the Separatists, Count Dooku.
More information on the Clone Wars content has been promised for “the coming months”, so keep your eyes open on TA for the latest as we get it.
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I’d run this again. I loved the game. Visuals and audio were great, just sucked going solo a lot.
I also think that playing as Dooku would be pretty badass
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When EA took to the stage at E3, one of the games that got some air time was Star Wars Battlefront II. DICE promised that July would be bringing along a new 4v4 Starfighter mode. That mode arrives today as part of the Hero Starfighters update, which also includes changes to Lightsaber combat, Hero Showdown, and a whole host of other bug fixes and improvements.
Hero Starfighters spawns every one of the eight players into a hero ship at the start of the round. Once players are defeated, they’ll respawn as a regular starfighter. The winning team of the round is the one that defeats all of the enemy hero ships. Hero Starfighters is a best of five mode, so the first team to win three rounds will be overall winners. The mode is a great way to level up Hero Starfighters, and DICE will be giving players a helping hand in this with a double experience weekend that will begin on July 6th.
In other game modes, the Great Temple on Yavin 4 has been added to Jetpack Cargo mode as a playable location. Ewok Hunt has received some tweaks and fixes and has returned to the game. Finally, Extraction mode will remain in the Operations rotation throughout July. For all of the other fixes and improvements, check out the patch notes in the spoiler below.
NEW CONTENT
FEATURES
- Added new Hero Starfighters mode
- Added the Sullustan appearance to the Resistance and Rebel version of the Assault class
- Added the ability for players to swap their appearances pre-round
- Added stamina count to lightsaber blocking and holding block, as well as a delay before the stamina starts regenerating. Stamina cost values are now significantly different for all lightsaber users
- Added the ability for players to turn lightsabers on and off during gameplay (PS4: Triangle button, X1: Y button, PC: 2 key)
- Re-designed daily quest system to now give 3 quests per day instead of 1, so the daily quests reward per quest has been reduced from 1000 to 500
- On Strike, Objective Delivery Zones are now visually represented in the world
- Added Yavin map on Jetpack Cargo
- On Hero Showdown, added elements to the HUD that show the health of team members
HERO CHANGES
GENERAL
- Fixed an issue where cancelling a saber combo would enable saber users to perform an additional hit on the enemy from any range
Emperor Palpatine
- Fixed and issue where Emperor’s main lightning ability took too long to recharge
- Fixed issue with Emperor Palpatine’s chain lightning not working on close targets
Rey
- Fixed and issues where Rey’s Dash Strike ability was dealing multiple damage
Chewbacca
- Fixed an issue where Chewbacca’s Charge Slam could last indefinitely if the player rolled and fired at the same time while the ability was active
Bossk
- Fixed an issue where Bossk’s dioxis could damage players inside the AT-AT
Lando
- Fixed an issue where the lip-sync for the “Interrupting” Lando emote was off on his new appearances
Darth Vader
- Fixed an issue where Darth Vader’s Intensified Lightsaber Throw displayed wrong information about the bonus damage granted
Young Han Solo
- Fixed an issue where the audio lines for Young Han Solo’s abilities Shoulder Charge and Sharpshooter were mixed up
HERO SHIP CHANGES
Darth Maul’s Scimitar
- Lowered regen rate to 600 from 700
- Made regeneration cooldown stop while being in cloak mode = You can’t regen while cloaking and it will resume the count down to regen when you get out of it again.
- Increased cooldown time for cloak to 20 from 15.
- Increased total health (hull + shield): (4500?5000)
Lando’s Millenium Falcon
- Fixed an issue where Lando’s Falcon ability Enhanced Sensors played globally
- Fixed an issue where using “Coaxium Injection” ability would display a placeholder text under the ability UI
- Fixed an issue with the scoring event where Black Leader was displayed when the player gained score with the L3-37 Co-Pilot skill
- Increased Lando´s Millennium Falcon Speed: Max Speed (110? 115)
- Reduced total health (hull + shield) from 17k ? 12.5k
- Tweaked regen value from 1200>1000
Iden’s TIE Fighter
- Fixed an issue where crafting Iden’s TIE "ENGINE HEAT DISSIPATOR " star card subtracted 2 skill points from the player’s inventory blocking one star card from reaching epic rarity in the process
- Fixed an issue where the “Elite Pilot” star card for Iden Versio’s TIE/LN flipped at class level 5 instead of class level 20
- Increased total health: (2000? 2800)
Boba Fett’s Slave I
- Tweaked regen value from 700>900
- Increased speed: Max Speed (100? 110)
Kylo Ren´s TIE Silencer
- Increased total health (hull + shield): (4500?5000)
- Tweaked regen value from 900>700
Darth Vader’s TIE Advanced
- Increased total health (hull + shield): (2000?2800)
Luke Skywalker´s Red 5
- Increased total health (hull + shield): (2700 ? 3500)
Yoda’s Starfighter
- Increased total health (hull + shield): (1600? 2400)
- Ion Stun skill nerfed. Decreased base duration from 6 to 3 seconds.
- Slightly increased regeneration rate 300 > 350.
Tallie Lintra´s A-Wing
- Increased total health (hull + shield): (1800? 2600)
Poe Dameron´s Black One
- Increased total health (hull + shield): (2700? 3500)
Rey´s Millennium Falcon
- Reduced total health (hull + shield) from 20k ? 14k
- Tweaked regen value from 1200>1100
Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon
- Reduced total health (hull + shield) from 20k ? 14k
- Tweaked regen values from 1200>1100
Y-Wing
- In Hero Starfighters game mode, reduced the efficiency of the Ion Cannon abilities stun effect
GAME MODE CHANGES
GALACTIC ASSAULT
- Crait map is back in GA rotation after fixing issue with MVP screen.
- Fixed an issue where players were able to enter in one of the troop transports blocking the attackers to complete the objective on Jakku
BLAST
- Crait map is back in Blast rotation after fixing issue with MVP screen.
- Reduced the player size from 20 to 16, in preparation for a future implementation of a 4-player based squad system
STARFIGHTER ASSAULT
- Changed Starfighter Assault Hero ship limits so one of the 3 ships doesn’t have to be the Millennium Falcon & increased Villain ship limits to 3 from 2
- Fixed an issue on Ryloth where in Phase 3, there was no out of bounds on the map
ARCADE
- Increased Combat Area size for all Starfighter Arcade maps and minor adjustment to vehicle spawn positions.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the HUD and starfighter to visually jitter during Starfighter Arcade modes
HEROES VS VILLAINS
- Fixed an issue on X1 that caused the title to remain in a hang state after the player was eliminated in the “Roger Roger” battle scenario and immediately re-spawned as the scenario reached 0 tickets and the EOR triggered
EWOK HUNT
- Fixed and issue where the “DEFEAT” prompt would be triggered when reaching the shuttle while the overtime was less than 10 seconds away from ending the match
MAP CHANGES
KESSEL
- Fixed an issue where the player could fly out of the hole in the ceiling on Kessel Arcade
CRAIT
- Fixed a lighting issue on the MVP screen
JABBA’S PALACE
- Fixed a wall collision on Jabba’s Palace which lead to exploits during Heroes vs Villains matches
- Fixed minor visual prop placement issue in one of the prison chambers
JAKKU
- Reduced AT-ST limit to 1
- Fixed an exploit where team 1 heroes could get into the landing transport vehicles in the final phase and hide inside them, being invulnerable from enemies, but still interacting with the objective
TAKODANA
- Fixed an issue where players were able to get on top of the Takodana map with Boba Fett
- Boba Fett maximum height issue fixed for Hero Showdown game mode.
GENERAL CHANGES
- Added a countdown timer on the tiles for the limited game modes
- Added progress bars on weapons and weapon mods in the front end
- Challenge tiles on the Home screen now indicate what the player has to do to complete a challenge
- Fixed an issue where leveling a unit with less than 100 experience threshold for its next rank, did not update the UI in the spawn screen until the player deployed with the unit again
- Corrected the Aurebesh quotes for the Professional “Sportsman” appearance
- Fixed an issue on X1 and PS4 in the Character Customization screen during the campaign where the inspect button had the same binding as the unequip button which made it impossible to unequip star cards from frontend
- Fixed an issue where continuous music would overlap with other standard level music
- Fixed a text issue in the Japanese version where the text “DAILY CRATE” appearing on home screen upon first login in a day got cut off
KNOWN ISSUES
- In Strike, the Objective Delivery Zones are not visually represented on the Death Star II map
- On the EOR screen, the sum of credits received doesn’t include the credit bonus awarded to players for being on the winning team, but players do receive it
The Hero Starfighters update will be available today, July 3rd.
Looks like it’s time to revive an occasional Battlefront 2 night.
Star Wars Battlefront II Month of Events Begins Tomorrow with 3XP
As seen in the image above, there are three Triple XP events throughout the month. The first of those, Heroes and Villains, begins tomorrow, January 4th. Until January 6th, players can earn triple XP while playing the Heroes vs Villains and Hero Showdown game modes. The following weekend is when the second event takes place. Troopers begins on January 11th, and players can earn triple XP in ways “revolving around Troopers”. Finally, the third triple XP event begins on January 18th. Unsurprisingly, Starfighters sees players earn triple XP in the Starfighter Assault and Hero Starfighters modes.
The final event of the month is a Battle Point event dubbed Eras. From January 25th until January 27th, the Battle Point costs of “era-appropriate” heroes is reduced by 50% on all Galactic Assault maps. During this time, players will not be able to make use of non-era heroes.
Accompanying all of those events is a game update scheduled for January 23rd. The update will introduce Count Dooku as a Hero, as well as adding two appearances, one for him and the other for the Clone Troopers. More information on this update will likely become available nearer the time, and we’ll be sure to let you know when that happens.
