This video compares Battlefront’s Rebel Base with the one from the movie
EA’s first Battlefront game is known for its authentic Star Wars locations. From Endor to Tatooine to Hoth, many of the locations from the Original Trilogy were faithfully captured by the developers at DICE in the 2015 game.
A new video by YouTube channel Rollokster showcases just how dedicated the team at DICE was when recreating Star Wars environments.
The video looks at the Rebel Base map in Battlefront and then compares it against the base on Hoth as seen in Empire Strikes Back. It isn’t quite a 1:1 recreation, but the in-game map still looks pretty darn close to the real thing:
This sort of thing has been pointed out before.
One of my favorite comparisons is of the Jundland Wastes map on Tatooine. The rocks leading up to Jabba’s Palace are almost exactly the same as the area of Death Valley, California where the movie was shot (image credit u/Booman01 on Reddit):
Real life comparison with Battlefront. Image by u/Booman01.
You can also see those rocks in Return of the Jedi’s opening scene when C-3PO and R2-D2 are strolling up to the palace’s entrance.
DICE utilized a method called photogrammetry, which allowed them to scan real-world objects and then convert those scans into 3D models. This is likely how they were able to recreate those rock formations on Tatooine so perfectly. Photogrammetry also humorously led Battlefront to share an Icelandic rock with Mass Effect: Andromeda. However, for other interior maps (such as the Rebel Base map or the Jabba’s Palace map from the Outer Rim expansion) a fair bit of by-hand modeling was probably still required.
Exterior of Jabba’s Palace in Battlefront. Image by Cinematic Captures.
Dennis Brannvall, the game’s lead designer (and now a Associate Design Director at DICE) actually discussed the challenge of recreating iconic locations—such as Jabba’s Palace—during one of the Outer Rim’s reveal livestreams.
“It’s always scary when you’re going into these iconic locations and you know the fans have such expectations on what it should look like—the size of it and the layout of it,” he said. “So you’re always struggling with that and how do we make it look and feel as much like the movie as possible, but at the same time, play well because this is a video game after all.”
Ultimately, I really think that DICE nailed the look and feel of Star Wars with Battlefront. Admittedly, the game does perhaps have some other gameplay issues—which will hopefully be addressed in the upcoming sequel—but, it really captures “that Star Wars feeling” like no game before it has.
(Top image taken in-movie. Second image source. Final image by Cinematic Captures. Check out their Flickr page for more awesome Battlefront screenshots.)
