Vardos, D’Qar and more: How Star Wars worlds will fit into Battlefront II
Planets are an elemental part of Star Wars. It looks like Battlefront II understands that.
From Naboo to Kamino to Tatooine to many more locations, EA’s upcoming Star Wars game promises a slew of worlds to explore. We’ll even get to set foot in Vardos, a planet brand new to Star Wars lore. Vardos is deeply loyal to the Empire and is the homeworld of the campaign’s protagonist and Inferno Squad Commander Iden Versio.
Unfortunately, Vardos won’t be making an appearance on the multiplayer side of things.
“[Vardos] is stricly for our single-player,” producer Craig McLeod told IGN. “[The campaign] is not only [Iden’s] journey, but she also encounters iconic characters—such as Luke—and new planets. So there’s a whole bunch of stuff that we’re keeping for that single-player experience, but then there’s nothing stopping us if we find these are loved environments and loved places; we can start to create multiplayer maps out of them.”
Is Pillio Base on a new Star Wars Planet? (Source: BattlefrontUpdates)
Even though Vardos won’t get a presence in online combat, it is exciting that McLeod hints towards the campaign featuring multiple “new planets”. A new planet the campaign might include is the rocky and tropical homeworld of a certain “Pillio Base” that was revealed in some of the behind-the-scenes footage from Star Wars Celebration. There is then also the world where an Inferno Squad member faces Luke in the Battlefront II reveal trailer (although that scene may be on the Pillio Base planet).
There is however, one other world that will be making its way over to multiplayer: D’Qar.
The planet D’Qar is home to the Resistance base in The Force Awakens. VentureBeat revealed yesterday that the planet will be added into Battlefront II post-launch in December as a space map. That new map will be part of the game’s first season of free post-launch DLC, which also includes Finn and Captain Phasma as playable heroes and the planet Crait, which was introduced a planet covered with salt and a red mineral base in the teaser trailer for The Last Jedi.
Interestingly, D’Qar’s inclusion as a space map likely confirms that the space battle also seen in The Last Jedi’s teaser is above D’Qar (shown above). This possibly indicates that the First Order will make a strike on the Resistance base sometime in the film.
Moving on to discussing planets generally, Battlefront II’s Galactic Assault mode will provide a unique gameplay experience across each planet in the game.
“The important thing here is that it invokes the fantasy and the spirit of that planet,” McLeod said in the same IGN interview. “So when you think back to the first Battlefront, stepping on Hoth, what was magical about that? It was stepping into that fantasy that you’d always wanted to live as a fan. Now here with Theed, we’re stepping into that invasion fantasy where you see that droid army take on this crown jewel of Naboo. So every time you go to a planet, whatever planet it is—and there are multiple planets across all three eras now—you will invoke that fantasy and you will feel that immersion that Hoth brought.”
Battlefront II design director Dennis Brannvall also confirmed during yesterday’s livestream with BattlefrontUpdates that the attack-defend element of Galactic Assault will carry over from planet to planet, but the specific objectives will be different. For example, the Multi-Troop Transport that’s shown off in the Assault on Theed wouldn’t be present on Hoth. Instead, it would probably be the AT-AT Walkers from the first game.
I definitely like the sound of Galactic Assault offering a different experience depending on the map. Hopefully this method adds in an extra component to enhance replayability.
Battlefront II arrives November 17 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Check out SWGO on Facebook or Twitter to stay up-to-date.
