Much has been made of the sprawling, open-field combat depicted in trailers for Electronic Arts’ Star Wars Battlefront. It’s pretty breathtaking to see that we can take part in battles on the desolate wastes of Tatooine and the icy landscapes of Hoth, with the expansive level maps allowing for multiple fronts to exist in a single game.
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But EA and the game’s developer, DICE, also want to provide a claustrophobic, close-quarters experience as well. On Thursday, they announced a new multiplayer mode called Blast that is tailored to offer different gameplay than the other modes.
After EA teased an announcement on Twitter on Wednesday, they revealed what elements the Blast mode will consist of. Blast is essentially a 10 v. 10 team deathmatch mode that will pit players of the Rebel and Imperial factions against each other in smaller, tighter versions of the bigger maps in the rest of the game. The team that scores 100 kills first or has a higher score at the end of a 10-minute round wins.
The DICE developers emphasized that these maps are not just shrunken copies of the main campaign’s levels. They have been altered to fit in with the type of fast-paced experience DICE wants gamers to have when playing Blast. Adding to the novelty is the fact that there are no heroes, villains or vehicles available, which, DICE says, only makes the weapon pickups scattered throughout more valuable, according to Lead Level Designer Dennis Brännvall:
"“Whether you pick up a Droid scanning for nearby enemies or a turret that’ll control a zone for you, the pickups can really turn the tide of a Blast match. They are not around every corner though, so keep your eyes peeled.”"
I often enjoy these tight, short skirmishes in multiplayer first-person-shooter games more than the open-air battlefield maps, so I’m glad EA and DICE are making sure to keep traditional game options in place. But I doubt this is the last multiplayer mode that will be made available.
EA also released a snazzy new picture of the game above that showed off the Blast mode, although it’s unclear what level that is.
Battlefront releases on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC on Nov. 17, and will offer first- and third-person options.