Despite an incredibly rocky launch period that sparked anindustry-wide debate on microtransactions and loot-boxes, as well as multiple government investigations into gambling practices in video games,Star Wars: Battlefront 2has managed to bounce back pretty well. EA and DICE have continued to supportBattlefront 2with new maps, game modes, heroes, and content that ties in with the release of a newStar Warsmovie, including the upcoming release ofStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
In the latestStar Wars: Battlefront 2content roadmap, DICE revealed a detailed look at what’s to come for the remainder of 2019, and to no surprise, brand newmovie tie-in content forThe Rise of Skywalkerwill be releasing at some point in December.Star Wars: Battlefront 2is due to receive its first December updated in the first week of the month with a second coming later on that is expected to correlate with the release ofThe Rise of Skywalkerwhichis due to hit theatres worldwide on December 20. So, what can fans expect fromStar Wars: Episode IX?
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The firstStar Wars: Battlefront, which is technically the second game with the nameStar Wars: Battlefrontand the first of the rebooted series, released in November 2015, ahead of the release ofStar Wars: The Force Awakens- the first Star Wars film to be released following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm. In an effort to recapture the magic of the franchise, EA and DICE chose to focus purely on the original trilogy of films, meaning that there was no big tie-in forThe Force Awakens, onlya small update called The Battle of Jakkuwhich added two maps and a new game mode for an event set between the original and sequel trilogies.
With two years between the mainline films of the new trilogy, Disney released its first Star Wars spin-off movie calledRogue One: A Star Wars Story.Star Wars: Battlefrontreleased with a Season Pass for post-release content and its fourth and final map pack,Rogue One: Scarifwas the first proper movie tie-in for the series. The Rogue One DLC came out one week before the film and featured four brand new maps based on the film, a new game mode, two weapons, two vehicles, a new Star Card, and two new playable heroes in the form of Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso and Ben Mendelsohn’s Director Krennic.
ForStar Wars: Battlefront 2, DLC worked a little differently after EA removed Season Passes from all its upcoming games, opting for free content updates and microtransactions instead. Battlefront 2 released in November 2017, one month ahead ofStar Wars: The Last Jediandreleased a six-week season of contentaround the new film. The Last Jedi season of content included three new campaign missions in the form of Resurrection, two new maps, and three playable heroes: John Boyega’s Finn, Gwendoline Christie’s Captain Phasma, and Tallie Lintra RZ-2 A-Wing hero ship.
The final movie tie-in came with the release of Disney’s second Star Wars spin-off,Solo: A Star Wars Story. Releasing at the end of May 2018,Star Wars: Battlefront 2received its secondseasonal event called The Han Solo Season, with new content added to the game over a six-week period. The first Han Solo updated added the Hero Showdown mode, Starfighter Arcade, a new Jabba’s Palace map, and two new appearances for Leia Organa and Lando Calrissian, while the second update added the Coaxium Mine map, the Extraction game mode, the Millennium Falcon hero ship, and three new skins based on the film for Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca.
So, what kind of content can fans expect to see fromStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalkerand will this launch a new seasonal event forStar Wars: Battlefront 2? Based on all of the previous movie tie-ins, the second December update is likely to drop at least one week before the release of the film and span across multiple weeks as DICE’s Community Manager, Ben Walke has publically said that December will a celebration month which is being headlined byThe Rise of Skywalker. Here’s what DICE said in the latest roadmap:
December – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker-Inspired Content Arrives
We are super excited that content around Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is coming to the game! We aren’t prepared to dig in deeper than that right now, but will unleash further details around this as soon as we can.
Also, more additional fall content and features are still to being confirmed, but we wanted to give you this an advance look into what’s coming up, even while realizing that things might move around, be added, or changed.
Unfortunately, neither EA or DICE has mentioned anything about additional story missions since the release of Resurrection in December 2017 anda new co-op modewas released in September this year for The Clone Wars. This means that the majority, if not all of the new content will be strictly for multiplayer. It’s likely there will be between 2-4 new maps across multiple game modes, new hero appearances such as Dark Rey and Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, and new hero ships. If we’re going out on a limb, it’s possible that new weapons could be added as well considering that none of the prior releases had any and there’s a significant time jump betweenThe Last JediandThe Rise of Skywalker.
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Star Wars: Battlefront 3isn’t happening anytime soon, so DICE and EA need to take this opportunity to really knock it out of the park and show lapsed players that now is the time to jump back intoStar Wars: Battlefront 2. There hasn’t been a new Star Wars movie in the last 18 months, and yetBattlefront 2has only continued to get better and better, meaning the release ofThe Rise of Skywalkercould help bring all three trilogies full circle and make it the complete, definitive package that fans always wanted.
The end of theSkywalker Sagais out next month, Disney Plus is about to release in the US with a brand new live-action Star Wars TV show calledThe Mandalorian, and the single-player only,Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Orderis less than a week away. Right now is the perfect time to capitalize on the Star Wars brand and bring new and lapsed players in.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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