'Battlefront' launches new 'Star Wars' game assault
On the outside, it looks like a large industrial storage space. It features concrete floors and rows of industrial shelves. The first sign this location is special is up a flight of stairs and through a doorway, where a life-size model of R2D2 used in the Star Wars films greets visitors.
“You’re trying to show respect and have a professional demeanor,” says Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir, a senior producer at Stockholm-based video game studio DICE. “Inside, you’re giggling like a little kid because you can’t believe that you’re there.”
This would be one of Ingvarsdottir’s first trips to Skywalker Ranch, located outside San Francisco and home to “a modern-day treasure trove” for fans of the Star Wars franchise: props, costumes, and other items used in the original trilogy featuring A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
The trips to Skywalker Ranch — along with access to original props and creative talent from Lucasfilm — helped form one of her biggest projects: Star Wars Battlefront, launching Tuesday for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Battlefront is the first in a series of Star Wars video games published by Electronic Arts as part of a deal struck with franchise owners Disney in 2013. Along with Battlefront, EA is working on a second title from the newly-formed Motive Studios and Visceral Games, with Assassin’s Creed designer Jade Raymond and Uncharted writer Amy Hennig leading development.
“We had a long relationship with Lucasfilm, and when Disney took over they wanted to continue to have games based around the (intellectual property),” says Patrick Söderlund, executive vice president of EA Studios. “They knew our passion for the Star Wars IP, and they knew we had the technology to make some amazing things happen.”
Star Wars: Battlefront is the successor to a pair of popular tactical video games -- Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 -- first released in 2004 for PCs, the original Xbox and PlayStation 2. Instead of focusing on Jedi heroes and villains including Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, players controlled Rebel soldiers and Stormtroopers, battling for control in a military-style environment.
DICE’s interpretation of Battlefront features a variety of competitive game modes inspired by events from the original trilogy, such as the Walker Assault, where one Rebel team must take down a pair of AT-AT walkers as stormtroopers descend on their location. In another mode called Hero Hunt, players team up as Empire forces in search of another player portraying Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Princess Leia. Among the characters players can wield: Lord Vader himself.
Ingvarsdottir says the team used a process called photogrammetry, where they take pictures of Star Wars props from different angles, then stitch them together into digital 3-D models.
“When you’re looking at Darth Vader, it’s basically using the original Darth Vader costume as a foundation,” she says. “It’s really bringing that costume into a digitized format and bringing it into the game.”
Battlefront is forecast as one of 2015’s biggest video game launches, expected to sell between 10 million and 12 million copies in November and December, says Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.
Although the deep focus on multiplayer and its availability on next-generation consoles could “limit its appeal,” Battlefront maintains an edge with studio DICE at the helm, notes Pachter. “They just don’t make bad games.”
There is a lot riding on Battlefront, between the legacy of Star Wars, the anticipation for new adventures including next month’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and this game as EA’s first release as part of its partnership with Disney.
“It’s been a while since there’s been a triple-A (game) set in the setting we’re building,” says Ingvarsdottir. “There is a high level of expectation.”
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.