Battlefront sequel to be “much bigger” says EA exec
During an investor conference today, EA’s chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen discussed next year’s Battlefront sequel.
While nothing too revealing received mention, Jorgensen did hint at what gamers can expect from the sequel.
“Next year we’ll have [the sequel to] Battlefront, the Star Wars game,” he said at EA’s presentation for the 35th NASDAQ Investor Program. “We were very excited about how [Battlefront] came out last year; it’s a beautiful game, people loved it.”
However, Jorgensen did acknowledge some qualms people had about the game.
“I think if there was criticism, they just wanted more,” he said. “We’re taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had.”
He also touched upon how the next Battlefront installment will utilize content from the newer movies.
“The other thing is that we were really working with the old canvas of Star Wars, the old trilogy,” Jorgensen said. “We weren’t using any of the new materials that came out of the movie last year because our game actually came out slightly before the movie. Next year, we’ll have the opportunity to start to leverage more of that content from the new movies. We think that’ll even make the opportunity much larger.”
According to Jorgensen, the team working the game will be able to provide greater depth than the 2015 iteration.
“We’re looking forward to bringing to the table next year, a much bigger, a much more exciting Battlefront for consumers,” he said. “There seems to be no waning in the excitement around the Star Wars world.”
Early work-in-progress footage of the Battlefront sequel.
Not many details are known about next year’s sequel. Jorgensen most recently hinted in early November that the game has a late-2017 launch date.
We also know that DICE (the studio behind the 2015 Battlefront) is building the game alongside Motive Games, a brand new studio headed by Assassins Creed veteran Jade Raymond.
Motive is adding “a significant new addition to the game.” With this in mind, some have speculated that the Montreal-based studio is crafting a campaign—which EA’s first foray into the Battlefront series lacks—but no official confirmation on the topic has arrived yet. Jorgensen’s comments today perhaps gives more weight to this theory.
“There’s no point in making something in the Star Wars IP if you’re just going to do what’s been done before,” said Motive’s game director Mark Thompson in EA Star War’s “Look Ahead” trailer. “It’s a fantastic opportunity for Motive to really tell the world what we’re about and we’re going to bring that to Battlefront, which is crazy. It’s incredible.”
Jorgensen also said previously (which he reiterated today) that the next Battlefront is to showcase “bigger and better worlds” while utilizing content from “the new movies.”
To listen to Jorgensen’s presentation from today, head on over to the EA investor hub. Jorgensen’s comments on Battlefront begin at around the 14-minute mark of the webcast.
(H/T Game Rant)
(Top image taken in-game. Second image source.)
I highly suspect the “exciting new addition” that Motive is working on will be a VR campaign. That seems to be the direction this franchise and the gaming industry is moving, and the Rogue One experience is the perfect testing ground for it.
Honestly wouldn’t surprise me if a campaign for Battlefront 2 is VR compatible out of the box. However, I’d guess that it won’t be exclusively VR. A VR-only campaign might probably upset more people than it would excite.
Was really hoping Battlefront 2 would feature the Clone Wars era, to include stuff from the films as well as The Clone Wars series, as well as Rogue One and Galactic Civil War stuff. Not interested in a BF2 based solely on the new movies.
Will most likely be OT and ST. If they only did episode 7 and 8 it would have even less content than the current game
Got a playstation VR but I want 2 see a open world game, missions n’stuff
People loved it? Is it some kind of fancy sweet talk for being freaking disappointed?
How about they release a complete game with coop campaign, on and offline maps (all of them), multiplayer, game modes (all of them) and freedom to create matches with as little as one player or as many as the limit allows, including the option for bots (setting the amount of bots as well). Also, allow full customization, like cards, skins, dlc in online and offline private matches (you know… since we payed for it and all…).
Oh and also, FIX THE BUGS FROM STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT 2015 (i.e. hutt contracts still bugged as of the date of this post) and stop treating your fan base like stupid cash cows. A working game with freedom to access dlc offline and create enhanced custom matches privately is a feature people want in addition to a working game. Come on guys…. If you’re gonna churn out new games every 1-2 years and you gain a reputation for crap games. I won’t buy anything with your name on it.
I understand that Mr. Jorgensen’s position requires him to put the best face on his company, so a candid admission of the problems facing SWBF is not in the cards.
I’ll provide that in an nutshell. This game was released incomplete. Bugs and major gameplay issues were addressed in an unprofessionally tardy and half-assed manner, when they were addressed at all. Communication with the player base has been between non-existent and minimal, with the minimal level being to whitewash their lack of professional effort. Paid DLC quality has been unacceptable since the first DLC, and is frankly more appropriate to free content than paid content. The remaining community generally believed that the Death Star DLC was thrown under the bus to provide resources to work on Rogue One, but Rogue One is arguably even weaker than Death Star, which is saying something. It’s shocking that a top tier franchise like Star Wars received this level of professional effort.
I made the mistake of purchasing SWBF at launch, along with the season pass. I will not make that mistake again.