Star Wars Battlefront Dev: "We Did Not Want This to Be a Battlefield Game"

Star Wars Battlefront is in development at DICE, the studio best known for its work on the Battlefield series. However, the developer promises that its legacy does not mean that Battlefront will simply be a Battlefield game with a Star Wars theme.

In an interview with The Guardian, DICE general manager Patrick Bach put to rest concerns about the upcoming game and its potential similarity to Battlefield. Battlefront does not have squads or deep loadout customization, nor does it have expansive environmental destruction, all features of Battlefield. Rather, Bach stated that the developer is focusing more on what made the first two Battlefront games great.

"We have a strong legacy with Battlefield, but we did not want this to be a Battlefield game," he explained. "We wanted it to have a heart and soul of its own. We came at it from a very different angle. We know that the core audience of a game like this is different to the Battlefield audience. There's a crossover, but Star Wars fans expect a Star Wars game, not a Battlefield game. We looked at what Star Wars stands for, rather than asking how can we tweak Battlefield to be something else."

Bach also said that the developer has been getting concerns about the game being not enough like Battlefield. After E3, however, those complaints went away: "We've had to accept the fact that people will be upset with us until they get to play it. And when people did play it at E3 almost all the negativity went away. We stayed true to what we believed in, and when people saw it, they got it, they agreed that this is a game on its own, it is not Battlefield, and they liked it."

Star Wars Battlefront launches on November 17 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. We were able to go hands-on with Battlefront at E3, and we came away impressed with both the co-op mode and the multiplayer mode. Recently, the developer explained that the game represents the foundation of the Star Wars films, rather than its expanded universe.