The New Star Wars Battlefront 2 Sounds A Lot Like The Old Star Wars Battlefront 2

One of the games that got a lot of special treatment during EA Play's press conference was Star Wars: Battlefront 2, and one of the things that was fairly undeniable was that the new Star Wars: Battlefront 2 sounds a lot like the old Star Wars: Battlefront 2 that EA and Pandemic released back in 2005 for the PC, PS2, and OG Xbox.

When the 2015 Battlefront from DICE dropped a lot of people wanted the one thing that was present in the old Battlefront from Pandemic: An offline story mode. It was something that Star Wars: The Force Awakens' star John Boyega even asked DICE and EA about via Twitter.

DICE obliged. Star Wars: Battlefront 2 now has an offline campaign story mode just like Pandemic's Star Wars: Battlefront 2.

A lot of people complained about the lack of tactical team play and squads in the 2015 Battlefront.

DICE obliged. They changed the character system to a class-based system just like Pandemic's Star Wars: Battlefront games and added squads.

A lot of people complained about the Star Card system and power-ups, saying it made DICE's Battlefront too "casual".

DICE obliged. They changed the Star Card system for the weapons and reverted back to the classed-based weapon setup that Pandemic used for Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Star Cards are still present but they're earned as mission bonuses to upgrade your profile.

While it might sound like a lot of the features are just a retread of what the now defunct Pandemic Studios did more than a decade ago, the reality is that these are all features that people requested... a lot. Why? Because the original series that Pandemic made more than a decade ago were hailed as some of the most fun games ever made and ended up becoming some of the best-selling Star Wars games ever made.

DICE even went back to using the point system from the old games, except they refer to them now as Battle Points. In Pandemic's games racking up kills, taking over command posts and disabling vehicles netted you points that you could then use to unlock higher tier classes during the round, such as Specialist classes and Hero characters.

For DICE's upcoming title this system will also be employed where players will rack up Battle Points by disabling vehicles, supporting teammates, taking over command posts or completing objectives. The Battle Points can then be redeemed during that round to unlock Hero characters or other higher tier classes or weapons.

As mentioned, Star Wars: Battlefront 2 will use a class system consisting of four different classes, including Assault, Heavy, Officer, and Specialist. Now unlike Pandemic's game, DICE switched the Support class with the Officer class, but both classes fulfill the same role of supporting teammates.

Also just like the old Battlefront, DICE made it where you can no longer use a Star Card to get a jetpack, instead it's associated with the jet-trooper class, just like in Pandemic's old games. They even kept some of the old weapons for the classes from the OG Xbox and PS2 shooter, with the jet-trooper having a grenade launcher and a blaster pistol.

Many of these changes from the 2015 outing of Battlefront have actually been met positively by the community who feels that this makes the upcoming Battlefront 2 seem like a far more complete game.

Now not all of these changes are retreads of Pandemic's game; some of them are brand new. Naboo's Theed, for instance, is no longer just a standard Conquest map like it was in Pandemic's game, DICE has turned it into a multi-stage Assault map that starts at the palace courtyards and proceeds all the way into the palace entrance. So DICE has taken a lot of what worked in the decade-old shooter and then added brand new features on top of it, sort of making it a best of both worlds.

The only downside is that Jedi/Sith in DICE's Battlefront can no longer manually block like they could in Pandemic's game. A minor inconvenience to an otherwise wholly upgraded ordeal compared to the 2015 outing. EA and DICE will also make DLC free for the upcoming game, opposite of the old title, so you'll be able to play Finn, Poe, and Captain Phasma as free DLC without having to pay more for them.

Basically it's combining a lot of the cool features from the old game on the PS2 and OG Xbox, but with the amazing visuals and sounds present in the eighth gen iteration. We'll get to see if it all works out when it launches on November 17th for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.