EA has revealed in an earnings call exactly why they haven't added any new content from Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens into the recent release of Star Wars: Battlefront and why none of the upcoming season pass DLC contains content from the movie: they're doing it to preserve canon continuity.
Game Informer picked up the news from over on the Wall Street Journal, where they quoted EA's chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen, who explained why no Episode VII content is in Battlefront, stating:
You can’t make a game in ’Star Wars’ that violates the canon of ‘Star Wars,’ [...] Meaning, you can’t take something from the future and bring it back into the past unless it’s a reference.We’re trying to stay tightly connected to the ‘Star Wars’ beat for future movies, and we will obviously in future Star Wars games be able to tap the new characters and vehicles and so forth
The carefully worded explanation was prefaced by the Wall Street Journal, who mentioned that since The Force Awakens takes place 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi that it was not plausible to mix and match the continuity of the canon by adding in characters from different eras.
On the outset it looks like it makes sense and people could go “Yeah, Kylo Ren at Hoth? That doesn't make sense. It's good they're preserving canon”. But then reality sets in and you begin to realize that Emperor Palpatine wasn't on Endor, that Boba Fett wasn't on Sullust, and the Luke from Return of the Jedi wasn't on Hoth. Also, Y-Wings weren't part of the battle of Hoth to protect the shield generator. The game already breaks canon so what does it matter if they add in characters people actually want to play from the new movie?
What's more is that Star Wars: Battlefront doesn't even have a story mode. It's just a series of loosely connected deathmatch and survival missions cobbled together. It's not like Star Wars: Battlefront 2, which actually did have a story mode that supposedly fit into canon (before the wipe), featuring the rise of Vader's Fist, the 501st. It was a really well done campaign mode that bridged the gap between The Clone Wars and the Galactic Empire, explaining how the clones were wiped out following their rebellion and how the new Storm Troopers came to be. Even despite containing all sorts of characters from different eras, Pandemic still honored canon in the game's campaign mode.
What doesn't make sense is why this newest Star Wars: Battlefront would have to honor canon when they don't do it already? Also, it's a deathmatch game where people are paying to have fun. Could you imagine in Call of Duty or Battlefield having restricted weapons or vehicles on some maps because “it breaks historical accuracy”? That would be asinine.
Some people assume that The Force Awakens properties would have cost more as part of the license that EA has for publishing Star Wars games, others assume that EA and DICE just ran out of time and didn't have time to include the new characters in time to make the release date. Beyond that, perhaps EA is using the canon excuse so they can save all of the Force Awakens characters and vehicles for the Star Wars: Battlefront sequel, which could give fans a reason to plop down $60 when it's time to release the next game.
