Star Wars Battlefront Sequel “Much Bigger”, No Battlefield Soon

Star Wars Battlefront was met with mixed reviews when it released in 2015. While compliments included comments on tight controls, nice visuals, and competitive play, complaints ranged from the lack of story to "Why does this just feel like Battlefield in space?"

At an investor briefing in Europe, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen addressed a number of concerns, including where Battlefield and Battlefront were heading.

With a Battlefront sequel set for Fall 2017, It was known that some fans felt the game wasn't going far enough with Star Wars lore and just re-skinned a competitive shooter and called it a day. This stems from the fact that the PlayStation 2 juggernauts Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront 2 were not typical shooters, adding specific objectives and story elements to the game, while the new franchise focuses exclusively on competitive multiplayer battles lacking any story substance. Jorgen acknowledged these complaints when discussing the sequel.

"If there was criticism, they just wanted more," he said. "So we're taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had."

The new Battlefront sequel will include characters and places from the new movies from the Star Wars franchise hopefully in conjunction with the old movies as well, allowing the game to reach a wider audience. Hopefully, this doesn't just mean throwing a Finn and a Rey and calling it "better", but Jorgensen remained optimistic as he described Battlefront 2 as a "Much bigger, much more exciting Battlefront."

As for Battlefield, Jorgensen commented that the series will be taking a break and a new title will not emerge until 2018 or later. Instead of shutting the door on the announcement, he further explained that the team at DICE wants to further engage players with their next title. He loosely compared their work on FIFA with their Ultimate Team mode being both adding to the experience and also not taking away from what people ultimately bought the game for.

While there may not be much news in the way of Battlefield besides "we're taking a break", the news on Battlefront leaves many cautiously optimistic.