If you haven't see the Star Wars Battlefront trailer, rectify that now:
Below is an analysis of that trailer combined with the 7 minute-gameplay demo (running on a PS4) IGN saw behind-closed doors at Star Wars Celebration, and of course, the usual sprinkling of speculation.
00:02 – A Star Destroyer looms over the forest moon of Endor. From speaking to Patrick Bach, we know we won't be able to pilot them, so it's probably just there to lend atmosphere and a sense of scale to battles, though towards the end of the trailer there's a suggestion it might be more directly involved.
00:09 – As the camera pans down, you can see the Ewok village and even Ewok scuttled across the bottom bridge. These platforms are accessible by spiral staircases, lending verticality to environments. We also see rebels wearing jetpacks, possibly allowing them to turn these structures to their advantage.
00:17 – A troop of rebels hurry across the screen, with orders being issued on the move. Battlefront won't feature a class-based system, but it will support a partner system in which you can spawn together and share weapons.
00:22 – A Stormtrooper is hit by a blaster shot square in the chest. The rain of sparks is identical to the practical effect used in the original trilogy. DICE is going to a lot of effort to reproduce the look and feel of the original trilogy, even going as far as to scan the original props kept in the LucasFilm vault. Essentially, you're playing with the original props.
00:25 – A female rebel looks back over her shoulder. There will be male and female characters on both sides of the fight, which includes Stormtroopers, and you'll also be able to select between a variety of different alien races, too.
00:38 – And here we see one of those playable aliens, a Sullustan, which is the same race as Nien Nunb, the co-pilot of Lando Calrissian. His gun looks more like rifle with scope mounted. The unreleased PS4 gameplay we saw at Star Wars Celebration showed the game being played from first- and third-person perspectives, with featured prominently in the first-person footage.
00:44 – The AT-ST appears from between two trees. In the foreground, there's another alien rebel – this time it's an Ishi Tib, the amphibian species which are native to the world of Tibrin.
00:49 – The rebels take refuge within a ray shield, giving the Sullustan time to use his jetpack – note the other character doesn't have one, suggesting this is a piece of special equipment – to gain a vertical advantage on the AT-ST.
00:51 – He fires his RPG and takes out the AT-ST. He then drops the RPG, suggesting it could be a one-time only use weapon. In the PS4 gameplay IGN saw, the missile launcher is found as a pickup on the map.
01:11 – An AT-AT appears on Endor! Star Wars Battlefront is mixing up iconic elements from the series to create epic battle fantasies. There are of course rules that can't be breached, but we'll definitely see characters and vehicles on familiar planets in surprising and exciting combinations. We know AT-ATs feature heavily in a mode known as 'Walker Assault', one of the larger battle types in the game.
01:14 – When the AT-AT thumps onto the scene, it's obvious that regular blasters and even RPGs aren't going to do much. You can find communications terminals in the environment which let you call in Y-Wing bombers to take out the walker – essentially, it's an aerial strike.
01:35-38 – Even though the AT-AT is down, there's a much bigger threat in the form of Lord Vader. This is one of the 'Villain' moments, which are major feature in Battlefront. At some point during the fight, a player can spawn as Darth Vader and effectively become the boss of the map.
DICE General Manager Patrick Bach describes it as becoming "the boss of the battle. You want to be the first thing everyone wants to take down, because you're super powerful. If someone spawns on the other side as a hero, there will be a clash of giants, of sorts."
01:41 – A montage of the remaining locations follows. There are 4 planets in Star Wars Battlefront at launch: Endor, Hoth, Tatooine, and Sullust.
This possibly could be one of the game's Special Missions, which kind of fill in for a traditional single-player mode, and it's been implied they will draw on iconic moments from the original trilogy. Maybe it's time to hop into a Snowspeeder and lasso an AT-AT again...
01:43 – Cut to the detailed cockpit of an X-Wing with the pilot in pursuit of a TIE fighter within a canyon on what appears to be Tatooine.
01:44 – We now see more from the same dogfight from an external shot. There will be no space battles in Star Wars Battlefront, with all dogfights taking place within the atmosphere. DICE has said it wants to focus on planetary combat and doesn't want to detach aerial combat from that.
01:47 – Boba Fett is very much alive! There's a lot going on here, with a Sandcrawler to the left and a squadron of what appear to be A-Wings just above. Like Vader, Fett will appear as one of the playable villains in Battlefront.
We've had this confirmed to be Tatooine but if you look in the top right-hand corner you can see a Star Destroyer crashing in the background, which made us think this could be a shot from the Battle of Jakku, the free expansion that will set the scene for The Force Awakens. Is taking down Star Destroyers an objective? Is it a cataclysmic event that alters the map? Or it could simply be something that happens in the background to give battles an epic sense of scale.
01:54 – The final location we see is Sullust, the hostile planet where the Empire constructs its weapons of war. It's a location that exist but hasn't been see at length, and that look is something DICE is helping to shape for the overall universe.
"You saw the Sullust scene in the trailer," Bach told IGN. "That kind of doesn’t exist for Lucasfilm. But where we know that’s the planet where you build the evil gear. That’s where the Empire builds AT-ATs. That’s f***ing awesome. So, what does that look like? We pitched a concept of what it would look like. And we agreed. Yes, this is right, that’s wrong, more this, less that. Done."
In the bottom left corner, you can see an Imperial Shuttle, which hasn't been confirmed as a playable vehicle. There are plenty of TIE fighters, and zooming towards the screen is the Millennium Falcon which has been confirmed as playable.
If you want to know more about Star Wars Battlefront, take a look at our we saw at Star Wars Celebration.