Star Wars: Battlefront – Actual Gameplay Footage Details Revealed

Star Wars: Battlefront has been revealed with an incredible trailer that uses in-game assets, and according to the team at DICE as well as to people who have watched actual gameplay the game graphics look identical to those seen in the trailer. Preorders for Star Wars: Battlefront are available for both the Standard and Deluxe versions. Attendees at the Star Wars Celebration event got the chance to witness some footage of actual gameplay, that the rest of us unfortunately didn’t.

Star Wars: Battlefront features an over the shoulder 3rd person view

Reddit user BobaFack, who was present at the event, went on to share his impressions:

I have to say I have mixed feelings, I’m impressed, but also a bit disappointed considering what they showed wasn’t exactly anything new or shocking. First off… This was PRE-ALPHA footage. The video was approximately 5 minutes long, took place on Endor, and was very similar to the reveal trailer they released today. I have a few thoughts and notes:

1- Yes, there is 3rd person. The viewpoint is not as far back as the original games, as it is more of an over-the-shoulder view similar to Gears of War, but I was impressed with the addition of 3rd person into the game. You can see your character from about waist-high up which will allow for some interesting customization options that I’m sure EA will include. They also were able to switch between 1st and 3rd person in game and were able to zoom in on each mode.

2- The HUD is minimalistic and included a weapon load out in the bottom-right corner with a slot for grenades, a personal bubble shield similar to the droideka version (which I’m assuming is an equipment slot), your primary weapon, and the final slot seemed dedicated to upgraded weapons (like a rocket launcher/sniper). The aiming reticule was smaller in 3rd person and larger in 1st person.

3- The textures looked ok. Certainly not on the level of the reveal trailer. Some of the animations were excellent, such as the rag doll physics of troopers falling after being killed, but some others looked choppy (Darth Vader swinging his light saber)

4- Speaking of Darth Vader, yes he was in the gameplay video, but he wasn’t shown from the perspective of Vader, he was shown from the perspective of the trooper as Darth approached him while deflecting his blaster shots. No other hero characters were shown in the gameplay video.

5- There were no obvious differentiations between troopers, for example, I didn’t see any scout troopers or rebel snipers or engineers. The only classes that seemed to be present were the standard troopers/storm troopers. It seems they weren’t willing to include the different classes in the reveal just yet…

6- Kill-streaks are in the game. Every kill the player earned gave him both points for his total, and points for his kill-streak total. When he reached a threshold, he earned a weapon upgrade. The player also picked up another weapon from a fallen storm trooper, meaning that you can scavenge for preferred weapons if you wish.

7- The primary weapon seemed to use a “heating/cooling” system instead of ammunition. There were red lines that circled around the aiming reticule indicating the weapon “heating” up in a sense, I’m guessing similar to the default blaster pistols in the original games.

8- Speeder bikes and AT-ST’s seemed to be controllable, but I’m still not convinced about the AT-AT. As far as the air strike goes, there was a piece of equipment that could be interacted with to call in the strike. The map seemed very crowded and difficult to pilot in, given the dense forest setting. For clarification, they basically showed the player shooting a rocket at the AT-AT, only to realize that won’t be that effective. The player then ran into the brush to call in an air strike using that set piece of equipment.

After the video, an EA rep then gave the same plug they said at the panel this morning, saying that the “Battle of Jakku” DLC will be free to owners of the game on December 8th, with pre-order owners getting the free DLC a week earlier on December 1st.

Also, just to give some substance to other rumors I’ve read on the site, there was no gameplay footage of anything in space.

I think this game has a chance to be visually spectacular. Also, the sound quality was truly mind blowing, as any proper Star Wars game should be. I’m hoping that they can add some fun multiplayer modes to this game in the coming months.

He subsequently offered some additional details regarding camera view:

The 3rd person zoom seemed to be an over the shoulder view, but the first person zoom was similar to the sniper zoom view from BF2. Like with the full-screen reticule.

Star Wars: Battlefront will be released on November 17 2015 for the PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. We will bring you any new information as soon as it becomes available.