More info continues to trickle out regarding DICE’s highly anticipated Star Wars Battlefront, and it’s sounding more and more like the studio’s attempting to avoid comparisons with its work on Battlefield.
After last week’s confirmation that there will be no down the sight aiming in Battlefront, comes an interview in the latest issue of OXM (reported by GamesRadar) that reveals that there are no classes or squads in the game
Design director Niklas Fegraeus explained that rather than picking from DICE’s traditional pre-made classes, players will be able to choose from a pool of weapons and equipment that’s added to as they progress down the experience track. So no medics, no engineers with anti-tanks weapons - anything you unlock you can use.
The other big omission is the squads feature from Battlefield, which separates each team into five-man groups, and allows members of those groups to spawn in on their teammates in the field. Replacing it is a ‘Partners’ system, which links just two players together instead, but otherwise performs roughly the same function. What’s interesting about it though, is that both partners can share whatever they’ve unlocked, so if you’re a newbie and you team up with one of those crazy types who’s spent about nine hundred hours in the game, you’ll be able to make use of every gun and piece of gear that they’ve unlocked.
Some pretty interesting steps away from the traditional shooter model there, and another example of how keen DICE is to avoid all the Battlefield: Star Wars jokes. The Partners system should inject a little bit of co-op style camaraderie into a game that lacks a story campaign, though I’m slightly surprised to see the previously pretty effective squads mechanic disappear completely. As for the lack of classes, as long as there’s a decent stock of weapons and gear to choose from, stepping outside the restrictions of set archetypes might be interesting. I’m getting the sense that DICE wants to remove some of the complexities of the online shooter, and encourage more players to jump in. What do you guys think?
Star Wars Battlefront drops on November 17 for PC and consoles.
