STACK #157 Nov 2017

GAMES FEATURE

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On the campaign trail

You wanted it. I wanted it. Everyone wanted it. And now we’ve got it. STACK spoke with David Robillard about bringing a campaign level to StarWars: Battlefront II. Words Paul Jones

B ack in late 2015 as the Star Wars: Battlefront release shadow lengthened, a chorus of criticism, led by such industry luminaries as The Force Awakens stars John Boyega and Simon Pegg, was levelled at EA for not including a

campaign mode in the game. It was understandable: DICE had just delivered the most authentic Star Wars game to date. It had special effects audio taken directly from the original source files at Lucasfilm, and the studio even gained access to the vault at Skywalker Ranch, accurately capturing all the helmets, weapons, armour and

was the number one requested addition,” explains lead gameplay developer at Motive Studios, David Robillard, during a recent trip to Sydney. “That was an easy decision for EA to just jump in and say ‘We need to push a single-player campaign out on Battlefront II ’. That’s where Motive came in.” Motive Studios, owned by EA

and based out of Montreal, was set up by ex-Ubisoft producer Jade Raymond when she joined EA in July 2015. Raymond had been instrumental in getting the Assassin’s Creed franchise off the ground a decade before. Motive was selected to produce the single-player component of Star Wars: Battlefront II. “At the time when EA were

Single player was the number one requested addition

vehicles from the films using photogrammetry. Battlefront had everything – except an offline campaign. Fans wanted a narrative-driven adventure and Missions just didn’t cut the mustard. “When EA looked at doing Battlefront II , the first thing they did was look at the fan feedback, and single-player

Did you know? The original Star Wars: Battlefront II , released in 2005, was developed by Pandemic Studios. It was also a third-person shooter, and it too featured a more focused campaign than its predecessor. Multiplayer servers for the PC version of 2005’s SWBFII were recently brought back online. An Xbox demo of SWBFII was given away with DVD sales of The Phantom Menace for players to try for free.

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