Star Wars: Battlefront II – helping you become a star warrior

GameCentral talks to the makers of Battlefront II’s new space-based multiplayer mode about the end of season passes and Star Wars VR.

Of all the games we played at Gamescom last month the Starfighter Assault mode from Star Wars: Battlefront II was by far our favourite. We wrote up our hands-on preview as soon as we got back from playing it, but that week we also got to have a lengthy chat with British developer Criterion; about how they went about creating the mode and ensuring 3D space flight is fun and accessible for everyone.

As both an expansion and replacement for the original’s Fighter Squadron mode, Starfighter Assault is almost a separate game in itself – with its own class-based and fully upgradeable vehicles. And yet relatively little is known about it beyond what can be gleaned from the trailer below and the map we played at Gamescom (which will be the same one in the open beta that starts in October).

We tried to prise at least a little more information from designer John Stanley though. As well as Criterion general manager Matt Webster, who is also executive producer on Battlefront II as a whole. Given Criterion also made the X-wing VR demo from Battlefront I the news wasn’t what we wanted to hear in terms of VR, but everything else seems extremely promising…

Formats: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC

Publisher: EA

Developer: Criterion (Starfighter Assault), DICE (multiplayer), and Motive (campaign)

Release Date: 17th November 2017

GC: This interview is going to be tricky because I really liked the game, and Star Wars in general, so I’m going to struggle to be cynical about it.

Both: [laughs]

GC: Plus, TIE Fighter is one of my favourite games ever and I’d long given up any hope of seeing a Star Wars space combat simulator with that level of authenticity again. But this is a lot closer than I expected. Did you take any influences from that game?

MW: I think, as we spoke about last year, it starts with game feel. What’s the vision? What’s the emotional connection that we want to get into people? I think we spoke about the progression through cars and into starfighters [Criterion also made the Burnout games and many of the better Need For Speed titles – GC]. It doesn’t seem like a direct line but in many ways it kind of is. Because if you care about how something feels, you want it to have both the accessibility and the depth it deserves. And so it will always start with that.

The influences we’ll take from wherever we can get it. So we’ll look at TIE Fighter, look at Rogue Squadron, look at all those games to see what can inspire us and then find something that feels right. With the starfighters, it was that we want people to feel like a badass starfighter pilots in epic battles. So we had to think about what a Star Wars battle means, and it’s the fighters and the capital ships, the movement, the speed, the excitement… and then we have to execute that in the game.

GC: I was particularly impressed you had full 3D movement in the game, which is something most gamers won’t be used to nowadays.

JS: Hopefully you saw, when you were playing yourself just then, that the handling is easy enough to pick up, but then we try and add a degree of depth and mastery on top of that. Because we know players are gonna want to be playing this hour after hour, match after match. So we’ve created a very different control system for the game, compared to Battlefront I.

We’ve built it from the ground up basically, and you’ll see that you’ll be able to pull off those kind of iconic Star Wars movements by yourself. Now you’ve just got a much better degree of freedom; you’ve got full roll control on the left stick and don’t have to rely on pre-set manoeuvres.

GC: So you haven’t had any problems testing the game with ordinary players?

JS: No, what we’ve been seeing is that for some people it’s been a leap from what it was previously, so it’s a slight control change. It’s a bit of getting used to and a bit of new understanding to learn. But for the most part they come away after 10 or 15 minutes and say, ‘You know what, we can really see the depth in this. I wanna get back on! I wanna practice more, I wanna play more!’

MW: If the core thing that you are doing is exciting and satisfying then people will look for depth. And I think we learned a lot from the VR demo, in particular, because we didn’t have the roll in there, but it informed a lot of what we’re doing here… how you deal with gameplay in a bigger space.

Actually, the capital ships do a great job of centring you, and almost subliminally the planet does a great job of orientating you. But it’s the way that the ships move that is most important. In my head I’m an amazing driver. In my head I’m an amazing fighter pilot. So how do we make that come true in the game? How do we make it feel right? If you focus on feel then lots of great things fall out from that, which I think allow you to push it a little bit further.

Star Wars: Battlefront II – there are also lots of prequel ships in the game

GC: The handling did feel great, but it didn’t feel anything like the VR game.

MW: It’s a different experience. I think that once you add more players things become more frantic, and it is a space battle. We didn’t do the roll stuff in VR because you have to think about a player’s physiology as much as their emotions. And here there’s loads more going on, so it has to be fast and responsive.

GC: When you roll and you’re upside down, as it were, does it autorotate you back? I couldn’t tell, but I liked the fact that I was upside down flying underneath the ships.

MW: I know, I was watching you!

GC: I was in a Y-wing but there was a Mon Calamari cruiser right nearby, so I was kind of using that for cover because I couldn’t outmanoeuvre the fighters.

JS: In terms of the autoroll, we’ve got a choice there. So you can either have autoroll on or off.

GC: Did I have it on?

MW: It was on, but because you were giving it a lot of input… there’s a timer on it, so if you don’t give it an input it will then roll you back. It’s quite short but you were giving so much input it didn’t need to do it.

GC: That’s great, that worked really well. But the problem with the fantasy of being a starfighter pilot is that TIE Fighter and Rogue Sqaduron were single-player. When you’re playing real people and they’re better than you, they’re having the fantasy and you’re the cannon fodder enemy making their dreams come true.

Both: [laughs]

JS: It’s something we’ve tried to design around, so we’ve actually got a lot of AI ships in there as well. How into the game you are, or how much you’ve played, there’s always gonna be someone you can take on and feel good about what you’re doing. So you’re gonna get that practice of being the ace pilot by taking out some of the AI first and then moving onto more people like Matt, for example. [laughs]

MW: I think the classes really help with that as well. As a beginner it’s good to spend a bit of time in the bombers and that’s actually…. they’re a little bit heavier, they’re fully armed and armoured, and so it’s a slightly different pace. The interceptors are dramatically different, so the different ships reward a lot of different sets of skills and really add depth and variety.

GC: It did seem noticeably harder as the Rebels though, as they had specific objectives rather than just shooting everyone. How do you balance that?

JS: There’s a couple of things. As Matt mentioned, if you’re gonna be going in for objectives maybe you’re gonna wanna go in as the Y-wing. It’s got more health, it’s a bit more tank-y. And that way you’re gonna do a little more damage to the objectives as well. Also, we’ve got our overarching system of Star Cards, so by using the Star Cards you’ll be able to increase things like your health and certain buffs like that. So depending on your goals and your level of experience you might go for a bit more of a defensive loadout, as opposed to a bit more of an offensive loadout.

MW: And the other major thing to remember is that you’re playing with a team. Who you spawn in with is called a spawn wave, and all those people when they play together get damage multipliers.

GC: I noticed there was a bonus if everyone was in the same ship.

MW: That’s right, yeah. And then similarly, when you go in with friends, that same system will be there. So it’s a different way of playing, you go from, ‘I’ve got no objective, I’ve just gotta shoot the enemy out of the sky’ to ‘Right, okay we’ve got multiple objectives so we’ve gotta fight together’. So all the systems are there for you. Starting off as a bomber and laying some fire down, knocking out some of those turrets so you can start to free things up.

GC: So is there a deathmatch mode or other non-objective based options?

MW: No, Starfighter Assault is the one starfighter mode. But how starfighters and aerial vehicles handle is the same in Galactic Assault and other parts of the games. So they are transferable skills.

GC: Okay, can you can take off from a planet and go into space, like the old Battlefront III was going to do?

MW: In the campaign you can. There are moments within the campaign where you go from the ground to spaceflight.

GC: I just want Starfighter Assault to be the whole game.

MW: [laughs]

JS: It already almost feels like its own thing, and that speaks to the breadth of the whole game. Three studios all collaborating on the same game, and they’ve got these very separate segments which come together to be what is probably the most ambitious game that EA has ever made.

MW: For sure. And it will find an audience that will probably commit solely to starfighters, just as we’re nurturing.

GC: I counted five maps in the trailers, is that all of them?

MW: You are correct… there are five in the trailer.

GC: Okay, so there could be more?

MW: We can’t get into specifics at the moment. But we’ll find out when it launches how people take to it and how we can start to think about additional content.

GC: No, no! Don’t wait to listen to people, just do it. You know you want to.

MW: [laughs] At E3 we announced the seasons concept, which is how the game changes after launch. So season one is all themed around The Last Jedi. So there’ll be Last Jedi moments coming for Starfighter Assault.

GC: I loved writing up that reveal because I had to go through it all and see what ships and locations I could recognise. [affects The Simpsons squeaky teen voice] Oh yes, that’s Kylo Ren’s new TIE Fighter!

Both: [laughs]

GC: And I only knew that because I’d seen the leaked Lego set photos. And yet the Resistance Bombers look too big, they seem to have quite a large crew?

MW: No, they’re smaller than you think.

GC: Oh, okay…

MW: In Lego. [laughs]

Will the Resistance Bombers allow for multiple players in one ship?

GC: The only problem I can see with Starfighter Assault is that objective-based modes tend to have a shorter half-life compared to other multiplayer modes. They’re more fun while it’s new and fresh but then you can get sick of them relatively quickly. How do you deal with that?

JS: That goes back to something Matt was talking about earlier, where if your fundamental draw is good, which for us always starts with the handling and game feel, then that will spread and people will look for mastery within that and see extra ways they can start using the starfighters. And if that feeling is right, and the setting you’re in and your objectives are fun, then you’re going to stay entertained.

MW: Yeah, much like in Galactic Assault, there is the initial rush but then as you play it more you start to get into all the nuances of the gameplay and the maps. I think the great thing about games now is we can change them after they launch. We can see what works and what doesn’t, and we can keep them alive. And I think the commitment to Battlefront in particular is a pretty heavy one.

GC: So, as with the rest of the game, there’s no paid-for season pass?

MW: That’s right. All the season content is gonna be free.

GC: And the Star Cards can be bought with microtransactions via randomised loot crates?

MW: The main thrust there is find a mechanism that is familiar to people and also allows us to not segment the audience. We want everyone to have access to the same content.

GC: You can earn the cards just by playing the game as well?

MW: Oh, yeah.

GC: The other obvious question I have is whether there are any VR options in the game?

MW: [hesitant] There is no VR.

GC: Nothing at all?! But you were doing so well!

MW: [laughs] It’s taken enough effort to make that.

JS: VR for Criterion is something that’s very important.

GC: You must have learnt so much doing that, it’d be a crime to let it go to waste.

MW: Well it doesn’t, you don’t forget it. I think as Andrew [Wilson, EA CEO] was saying a few months ago. VR is going to be a part of gaming’s future in the coming decade.

GC: Oh, don’t give me all that!

Both: [laughs]

GC: It’s a particular shame because first person mode with a starfighter is still useless.

MW: At some point we could sit down and spend a good number of hours talking about where VR needs to get to in order to work with that, because in something like this you’re doing the job of a fighter pilot. And in the real world that has a significant physiological effect on you, which would dramatically limit the audience.

JS: Matt mentioned at the start, how the handling doesn’t feel the same as in VR, and that’s because they’re completely different beasts.

MW: But making the VR demo absolutely informed the work we’re doing now. So there’s a lot of the VR mission’s soul in Starfighter Assault.

GC: When you get to do your own separate game, will that have VR in it?

MW: [laughs] Just for you!

GC: I did love how you handled the camera in third person mode. It seems to follow the same style of cinematography as the films.

MW: Handling is not just the control input, lots of it is in the camera and the camera movement. And so our aim was to have the ship big on the screen, for it to feel cinematic. The team has done a phenomenal job, but it starts with that really clear vision.

The films, those moments, for me it’s always the Return of the Jedi moment where the Falcon is going like this and [starts recreating the Battle of Endor with his hands] it follows a TIE Fighter and a B-wing blows up… it’s those moments that were the reference points. So it naturally comes through.

GC: That must be hard to orchestrate with an unscripted multiplayer game though.

MW: If the core of the game is right those things will happen. If the core feel and camera and sound, and that primary second-to-second action is right. If that is tight enough some of those other things just naturally fall out as emergent pieces of gameplay.

GC: Okay, we’re out of time, so I’m just going to throw out some nerdy questions. In the old canon at least there used to be two-man Y-wing fighters, is that something you’ve thought about at all?

MW: Well, that’d be a neat idea.

JS: [suspiciously quickly] Sounds cool.

GC: OK… you can have that for free.

MW: Well, we are making you your own game. [laughs]

GC: In the old Battlefront II you could jump in a starfighter and fly over to an enemy capital ship and try to board it. Is there anything like that in this game?

MW: On Galactic Assault there’s aerial vehicles involved in a ground battle as well…

GC: I complained about this last time, didn’t I? They shouldn’t be fighting in the atmosphere! The reason the X-wing has S-foils is to make it aerodynamic in an atmosphere, or they’d just be open all the time.

MW: There is Kamino, which is in the trailer, which is a low atmosphere battle above the water.

GC: Can you fly a TIE Striker from Rogue One? I liked that because it showed someone else was thinking the same as me, and realised that they would’ve had specialised atmospheric fighters.

MW: I’m wracking my brain to remember what was on the list we can talk about… I don’t think we’re talking about the specific fighters that are in each map yet.

GC: Well put it in if it’s not already!

MW: Okay, I’ll write it down. That’s number two, you can have that for nothing!

GC: And a Rebel equivalent [squeaky teen nerd voice] you cannot have X-wings dogfighting in the atmosphere!

MW: It’s just not right! [laughs]

All: [laughs]

GC: Okay, thanks very much for your time. It all looks great.

MW: Thank you.

JS: Thanks a lot.

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