The multiplayer shooter Star Wars Battlefront was presented by Electronic Arts at E3 in Los Angeles. Gameplay was seen for the first time. EA’s strategy seems clear: We rely on the power of nostalgia.
The press conference by Electronic Arts was a bit strangely structured. It began with a bang, announcing the new Mass Effect with a cohesive trailer. Then came Need for Speed and the new expansion “Knights of the Fallen Empire” for SWTOR, before fans were fed nearly an hour of casual games, mobile games, and numerous sports franchises. The diet didn’t sit well with some of those present, gaming journalists and viewers of such live streams are primarily core gamers. And they were mainly there for two things: Mass Effect and Star Wars: Battlefront.
It seemed EA had anticipated this. They repeatedly flashed in the live stream: Later, Battlefront is coming.
Star Wars Battlefront was the highlight of EA’s E3 presentation
Star Wars Battlefront was then presented towards the end of the show at 11:15 PM our time. A Swedish developer from Dice presented the game with a strong but not unlikable accent and continued here the strategy “N for Nostalgia.” As a child, she was afraid of Darth Vader, pretending with a slightly modified pen that she was in Star Wars and would shoot with a phaser.
Today, no other medium is as suitable for immersing oneself in the world of Star Wars as a video game. But one thing is clear, the players demanded gameplay and that was what they wanted to show them. The hall responded with applause.
Gameplay on Hoth
The gameplay consisted of a 20 vs 20 player battle on the ice planet Hoth, which seemed strangely familiar to the fans. And that was exactly the plan. Style, aesthetics, maybe also the course of the battle are modeled on the films in great detail. And like in the original trilogy, action is everywhere on the screen. Foot soldiers, powerful AT-ATs, the walkers, and also spaceships deliver action. The battle splinters into skirmishes, into duels. That the AT-AT only runs on pre-defined tracks, which the fans had complained about beforehand, doesn’t play a major role in the tumult now.
With a jetpack, one briefly flies through the air, shooting the well-known beams from laser pistols. When switching briefly to the cockpit of one of the Empire’s destroyer machines, the Imperial March can be heard faintly in the background.
And Electronic Arts knows the images in the minds of gamers: When an AT-AT falls, it’s because it is forced to the ground by a cable from one of the skimmers. One of the iconic scenes from the movie. And it doesn’t take long before rebels are lifted 20 centimeters off the ground and hold their necks. A clear sign: One of the hero figures has entered the battle – in this case probably more of a villain figure.
The action concludes with the fight between the two main characters from the first film trilogy: Darth Vader confronts young Luke Skywalker. The lightsabers clash: one green, one red. The certainly staged gameplay is over.
Does the nostalgia tactic work?
The scenes are, as they say, live footage from the Playstation 4 and apart from a possibly somewhat low FPS, it all looks quite impressive, evoking “Aaahs” and “Ooohs” from the audience.
New details are not revealed. Well, Skywalker is confirmed as a hero figure, that was no surprise. Ultimately, the demo was just a first taste of whether Star Wars: Battlefront will succeed in taking players back to their nostalgically romanticized memories. To immerse them in a time when they first saw Star Wars. Or at least when they first played a Star Wars game.
In the chat accompanying the live stream on a US site, there was the annoyed comment: Hopefully, they won’t ruin my childhood memories. However, the person did not mean the warm thoughts of the first Star Wars trilogy on dad’s lap in the cinema or at home, but the memories of the first gaming session with the Star Wars Battlefront series 10 years ago. For this and its numerous features, the current Star Wars: Battlefront must be compared.
And after the first gameplay view, it seems that this comparison does not need to be feared. Or what do you think?
