Star Wars Battlefront II Alpha Data Mining Reveals New Locations and More.
Star Wars Battlefront II remains one of the most anticipated games to be released in the remainder of 2017, and as such fans are scouring the internet for any new details on the game. Now, Reddit user DarthBootsy has managed to find a number of things tucked away in the code of the game’s alpha.
The posts that DarthBootsy made can be found here and here. I should note that, since this is an alpha, the data being mined only represents a fraction of what will actually be in the game. Also worth noting is that EA plans to have a boatload of DLC for this game – all of which will be free, thank the maker – so if your favorite character or planet isn’t represented here, hold your horses – they’ll probably get to them eventually. Finally, I’ll offer a word of caution – there’s a point at which some of the information uncovered reveal potential spoilers for the game’s story. However, I’ll save that for last and give you fair warning before we get there.
Now, let’s get into the good stuff:
Locations
So far, the files looked through make mention of 14-15 planets and other locations in the base game – 2 locations tied to the Prequel Trilogy, 5 locations tied to the Original Trilogy, 3 locations tied to the Sequel Trilogy, and 4 (possibly 5) other locations that could potentially represent any era. So far we’ve seen art or gameplay of Naboo, Kamino, Yavin IV, Hoth, Endor, Vardos, Jakku, Takodana, and Starkiller Base. But according to the files leaked, we’re getting more than just that – we’re also getting to fight on Bespin, Sullust, the Death Star II, Athulla, and Fondor. (There are also two things referred to as “Pillio” in the data tied to locations, but given that both are tagged with “living” and “dead” options, I have no idea what to make of this. Perhaps there are specific resources for a planet before and after it gets hit with some kind of catastrophic biological weapon is unleashed.)
Some of these planets seem to be only for the story mode, but as it stands, Naboo, Kamino, Yavin IV, Hoth, Endor, the Death Star II, Takodana, and Starkiller Base are all going to be playable in Galactic Assault mode. We can probably infer that the two holdover planets from the first game (Bespin and Sullust) will also be playable in this mode, so if that’s true then we’ve got at least ten planets to start out with. As for the “new” planets not affiliated with a specific era, only one is a holdover from Legends (which incidentally was brought into canon thanks to Tarkin), and thus is the only new planet that we really know anything about. (More on that later.) In addition, certain assets for non-playable vehicles suggest that Coruscant may be one of the maps in the game, assets describing Jawas and Sandcrawlers suggest that Tatooine will return as a map, and the apparent presence of a “Wookiee Warrior” asset might indicate that Kashyyyk could be represented as well.
Gameplay
So far, gameplay is split between 3 major categories: Fantasy Battles (Online Multiplayer), Campaign, and Skirmish (Offline Single-Player). Fantasy Battles features modes like Galactic Assault, Planetary Battles, and Conquest, while both the Campaign and Skirmish feature four difficulty levels – Easy, Medium, Hard, and Hardcore. Blast mode and some sort of Duel mode will be supported by Skirmish.
There are plenty of vehicles present, including the X-wing, Y-wing, A-wing, T-47 Airspeeder, 74-Z Speeder Bike, TIE fighter, TIE interceptor, AT-ST, TIE bomber, TX130, ARC-170, Tri-Fighter, Hyena Bomber, and Tauntaun units. Hero vehicles are also included, as the Millennium Falcon, Slave I, Scimitar, X-34 Landspeeder, and TIE Advanced x1 all appear. In addition, turret weapons can be utilized in the game, and while they’re stationary, they serve this same purpose.
As for some of the other details, there are a lot of options with regard to the various weapons, but I’m not entirely certain how they compare to the weapons in the first game. There’s also chatter specifically for vehicle units, something that wasn’t present in the original Battlefront II. Oh, and Poe Dameron might be a playable hero unit. The full details can be read in their respective threads.
Story
As mentioned above, the planets that seem to be made exclusively for the campaign (at least at the game’s launch) are Fondor, Athulla, Vardos, and Pillio (if that’s an actual location). Fondor is one of those planets where it’s been turned into one big city. I stress that – from the sound of things – this is a campaign-only location. We might not even make landfall with this particular location, since it’s already been revealed that one of the missions in the campaign mode will involve Iden Versio and the rest of Inferno Squad going into one of Fondor’s shipyards to meet with Imperial survivors – so we could just be getting ship interiors for all we know. Vardos, in the meantime, is an Imperial planet that serves as a metropolis, and is crucial to Iden’s personality as it’s her homeworld. Athulla and Pillio are both locations created for this game, so we won’t have any idea of what to expect with these worlds until we get a good visual on them. So that’s what we know about the story as far as our locations go.
And this is the part where I warn you about the major spoilers that follow. There’s specifically some dialogue in here that presents some interesting implications on the direction that the story will take, so spoilers will follow after the obligatory warning image.
Alright, so this is the last thing I think is worth mentioning, and it’s a doozy: the dialogue that’s been found suggests that Inferno Squad defect from the Empire and join the New Republic in the last days of the war. The New Republic soldiers express relief and occasional suspicion that Inferno Squad is working with them, and the Empire is regarding them as traitors. Now, before some of you who would be reasonably irked by this plot thread of the “good” bad guys going good, bear in mind that it seems likely that this alliance is built upon deception of some sort. There’s a direct allusion to Gallius Rax, which suggests that the narrative brought forth by the Aftermath novels – and if that’s the case, then it’s possible that Inferno Squad learned of Palpatine’s scorched-earth plans issued in the event of his death and, given that the characters, they disagree with them and are willing to sabotage Rax’s plan if it means that the Empire can live on in some other way.
The whole “I’ve waited thirty years for this” line that they’ve teased suggests that Iden Versio could be engaged in subterfuge within the Republic and may be operating as a wolf in sheep’s clothing as the First Order replaces the Empire (since the First Order’s rise had a lot to do with sympathizers within the Republic). This is just informed speculation based on what we’ve learned, but it seems doubtful that a story that’s being prided as focusing on the heroes of the Empire would suddenly have them pull an about-face at the end – especially since we know that the campaign will end in the Sequel Trilogy era, since there’s a mission where you play as Kylo Ren. (Incidentally, if you haven’t played Spec Ops: The Line, you really should, because the guy who is serving as the architect of this game’s story is really good with subverting expectations – so I think it’s incredibly unlikely that this “twist” will be as cut-and-dry as it initially appears here.)
Anyway, that’s all for now. We’ll be sure to keep covering the latest on Battlefront II and more at Star Wars News Net.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
The bad guys turning good?!?!?!?! Why I never head of such a trope!
yeah, turning bad guys good is pretty much what Star Wars does all day. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Infernos “redeemed”.
But is does seem like it could be a bit predictable and boring. Hopefully not though.
TIE Fighter didn’t. They forged a compelling story out of internal conflict in the Empire – no hokey ‘heart of gold’ need apply.
Tie Fighter was such an awesome experience.
I think the story should be affected by wins and losses in the single player game. If you lose a battle you have to go a certain way and another if you win. THAT would be awesome. It would keep the game new every time you play through it.
Sounds kinda like Star Fox 64
EXACTLY like StarFox 64. Ha ha. 😀
I loved this game so much as a kid. Like…to the point of obsession.
I love this idea. But I would expect that with the game’s storyline having official canon status that the story will be pretty universal. Hopefully it will be a good tale regardless, but it being canon does limit the single player gameplay.
You’re not making any sense.
I get what Hard Case is saying, but my argument would be, why does it HAVE to be canon? Can’t they just make a fun game and not limit themselves because it doesn’t go with story? There was an old Galactic Battlegrounds game where you could pit the Rebels against Gungans, or the Empire verses Clones. Obviously that would never happen in Canon, but it was fun!!
You literally just described Star Wars Battlefront 2 non story mode. Mixing eras, battling of troops in a cool way to make you feel like you are apart of the Star Wars experience.
I didn’t mean that I wanted battlefront singleplayer to be multiple eras mixed. I meant that video games don’t have to be canon. It’s cool to kind of make your own story and doing that in a FPS rather than a role-playing game would be awesome. It seems that when the singleplayer mode is over, there’s not a lot to keep you playing it over and over. But having different outcomes after each battle and different paths around the galaxy would be awesome. It’d be like combining, FPS, RPG, and Strategy games all into one.
Maybe I worded that strangely…my point is that the game is canon. If the story is supposed to be official Star Wars history, you can’t give players freedom to create their own story along the way. The story would have to be the same for every player (universal). A canon game limits what can happen storywise.
I think what Pablo said a couple weeks of canon is not a play by play of the exact details of what happened more of general tellings. All it is that Han and Greedo sat at the table at the cantina on Tattooine and only one of them got up and walked away, details vary. The game could lead you to make your own choices but have you end up at the same place by the end which makes your choices nothing but superficial ones, but I digress.
I see your point. But I still don’t think you’re going to get anything as interesting as a “light side” vs. “dark side” ending choice or anything along those lines. The game will already be like what you are talking about by nature. For ex. – the cutscenes will all be the same for everyone, but not every player will take out enemies the same way or use the same strategies while playing. These differences must exist and I think Pablo’s comments apply here. But you’re not going to see drastically different outcomes in a canon game to the point where you have alternate stories.
Or even have some noticeable impact on the next level – thinking something like EVOLVE’s mechanic here.
Palpatine’s Operation Cinder is clearly a part of Battlefront II, because one of the sentinel droids, who have been delivering those orders to Imperial officers in the comics and books, shows up in the trailer. Also, the “alive” and “dead” versions of the planet most likely refer to the effects of the superweapon being developed with the “Alderaan debris” macguffin.
That plot point with the superweapon is for the Smuggler game, not Battlefront II.
– Pomojema
Oh the guy who did Spec ops? That game was terrible and I hated the “twist”. Suddenly less excited now.