The Star Wars Battlefront Legacy and Why It Deserves One Last Fight
The Recent Uprise in the Star Wars Battlefront II Servers: a Sentiment or Signal?
Perhaps you have noticed that there has been a recent surge of activity on the servers of 2017’s Star Wars Battlefront II with fans keeping the hype from last month’s May the Forth yearly celebration for one of the most popular sci-fi titles ever. Would EA and DICE however develop a Star Wars Battlefront III release in the future?
The situation is a bit complex at this point, with chances showing little to none possibility for a Star Wars Battlefront EA release, although not everything is lost for the fan-favorite franchise and perhaps there is still hope for a future upcoming title at some point, or the different and more decent modding options around.
Even though the last official entry in the Star Wars Battlefront franchise was eight years ago, Star Wars Battlefront II has had a recent activity peak standing at 18,000 players consecutively over the last couple of months and it may be a strong signal that fans are actually ready for the next installment of the game in the Star Wars Universe.
After all Star Wars Battlefront II gameplay did feature both a single-player campaign and various multiplayer modes that has obviously kept fans active for quite some time. When playing the single-player campaign you take the role of Iden Versio as the Imperial commander of a special tactical operations strike team squad. All of these events from the storyline happen between the Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens movies in the Star Wars franchise.
Was there Ever Going to Be a Third Entry in the Star Wars Battlefront Franchise?
Most likely throughout the years there have been at least several talks and potential sequel projects, but all of them had their different hurdles such as budgeting, rights retention and withdrawal and almost none of them reached a deeper stage and with some of the more recent project cancelations and events in the industry in mind, it is probably best for fans to not expect a Star Wars Battlefront III announcement in the near future, at least not by Electronic Arts that is.
According to Mats Holm, who has worked on the live operations developer team for Star Wars: Battlefront II at DICE: "I don't expect Star Wars Battlefront III release to be announced at the end of this rally," As he responded to questions regarding a possible sequel due to the more recent rise in Battlefront II player numbers. He continued by adding: "But overall, yeah, I think there are people who are talking about it". In his own opinion Holm described the biggest issue that holds up a potential new game is the fact that a huge number of the original Star Wars Battlefront II team members are no longer working at DICE. Since many of these devs now moved abroad to various studios such as Ubisoft, Embark, Mojang and Paradox as well as freelancing, it would not be possible to assemble another production again.
The Battlefront II LIVE team had been left mostly intact initially and then started to slowly disband, this is actually the main reason that probably held the game together and active for so long even until today! It would also seem that the approach of the live production team was quite different from the original members and did not allow for the title to fade into obscurity by adding original content and regular fixes or improvements post-launch. Currently there are "about three people" only from Battlefront II live team at DICE. Another pending issue is that the studio is directing all of its development force into the completion of the upcoming new Battlefield game as well some other titles they wish to further expand on.
Is there Light at the End of the Tunnel for Star Wars Battlefront to Continue
Recently another of the original Star Wars Battlefront II team members - Harvey Newman has expressed vocal enthusiasm on the internet of his willingness to return to the franchise “If Battlefront 3 ever happens”, and by doing so to obviously be expressing hints that he would like to see the franchise continued. After all the case is that LucasArts does hold the rights over the Battlefront IP and they may theoretically make an attempt for a third entry of the game in the future, or why not a complete soft or hard reboot of the franchise as a whole. This still does shed some light at the end of the dark tunnel the game seems to be in.
There is probably a long list of possible improvements that the game could receive and getting it updated was always a cool thing to have. We could point to cross-play features, day and night cycles with more dynamic weather conditions for the different planets, a 1 on 1 PVP battle mode and many more others that have been circulating in the forums… the list is quite lengthy.
As a result, it is not really a huge surprise that many of the fans have been looking for ways to experience some brand-new features and creative content. This is exactly what we are going to discuss in the following part of the article:
Could the Modding Scene be the Answer to the Battlefront Situation
That is the point at which the Harrison Fog name comes into play, a very prominent modder who has been able to masterfully craft a Star Wars Battlefront II Remaster. As the description for it states, “Star Wars Battlefront 2 Remaster is a total conversion mod that would expand on the maps, units, vehicles, weapons and effects of the original title, while still managing to retain the overall integrity of the Star Wars Battlefront II gameplay” in the process.
The mod does constantly get updated on the regular even to this very day and at the moment the mod has received nearly 600k online downloads as well as overwhelmingly positive community feedback and ratings, reaching the impressive grand total of 9.6 points. It may seem that this mod and another option, such as a fan-made Star Wars Battlefront III “alpha” mod that for sure does not actually feel like an official Battlefront III game, but at the same time it is as close to it as possible at the moment. These could be the only possible solutions to keep fans busy until the announcement day for a real Battlefront III becomes a part of reality…
The Star Wars Battlefront franchise is still going to probably be popular and relevant for years ahead and it should keep on bringing out new gaming titles in the future. Such a highly-anticipated sequel opportunity should not go to waste and the recent spike in activity on the Star Wars Battlefront II player count for both the PC through Stream as well as the PlayStation and Xbox console platforms just shows that it is worth it for the title to have another shot.
In any case we are going to keep actively tracking what is happening in the Star Wars Universe as well as all the rest of the popular hit titles and franchises out there! Stay tuned for more updates and promotions in the heat of the coming summer weeks!