'Star Wars Battlefront 2' is scheduled to drop as early as next year as 'Battlefield' hits EA's back burner
A barrage of new content is still scheduled to come to "Star Wars Battlefront" just before the year ends as part of the "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" marketing push. But there seems to be no enough conversation topic for the video game as talks of the second full iteration of the Electronic Arts-published game surface.
Fortunately, those who are hooked on the action, shooter video game "Battlefield" can get their fix via a brand-new game in "Star Wars Battlefront 2" as current schedule points to a release next year. That is just about two years since the first iteration of the title debuted. The speedy turnaround is rooted in EA's timeline that bypasses a sequel to "Battlefront," at least in the next couple of years. Hence, a shooter title needs to be polished to fill in its slot and the company found it in "Battlefront."
Obviously, anything with the "Star Wars" tag garners so much interest thanks to the franchise's pop culture status. And it may be a good move from EA to capitalize on the rejuvenated draw the lore has been experiencing since "Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens" debuted last year. In fact, chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen acknowledges the opportunity with next year's "Battlefront 2" being a mining ground for video game content.
"We were really working with the old canvas of Star Wars, the old trilogy, we weren't using any of the new materials that came out of [Episode 8] because our game actually came out slightly before the movie," Jorgensen said during Nasdaq 35th Investor Program. Next year we'll have the opportunity to leverage more of that content from the new movies and we think that'll make the opportunity much larger."
This could also be a great way for EA to finally introduce an official campaign mode, which is something that the first "Battlefront" sorely missed. It mainly caused a backlash for the title as gamers pointed out that they would have liked to play it offline for a more immersive experience especially as it was able to capture the feel and vibe of the "Star Wars" lore.
"I think if there was criticism they just wanted more. And so we're taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had," the company executive added building hope that a single-player feature may finally debut alongside "Battlefront 2."