Here’s When You Can Play The Next Star Wars: Battlefront Game

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

With J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII looming just beyond the horizon, Star Wars mania is ramping up all over the entertainment spectrum. One of the franchise’s most popular offshoots, the Star Wars: Battlefront video games, is finally coming back to fans for new generation systems, and here’s when you’ll be able to get your hands on the third console edition.

Sure, a concrete release date would be nice, but there are a lot of gamers out there who thought that this long-gestating sequel would never come out at all. (Technically, I guess there’s still a lot of time for this project to fall through.) EA DICE is putting a lot on the line by announcing a release date a year ahead of time, but considering they first announced the game’s existence back at E3 2013, I guess some solid information was due.

Vague as it is, this release window allows for some interesting speculation. As we all know, Star Wars: Episode VII comes out on December 18, 2015, just in time for Christmas. And I’m sure nothing sounds better to Electronic Arts than having millions of gamers wanting PS4 and Xbox One versions of Star Wars: Battlefront as presents. Not to mention people who take vacation on the holidays and just want to buy the game for themselves. That everyone will be going Hoth wild for the Disney/Lucasfilm universe by that point is definitely going to boost sales.

But the bigger question here is: is EA DICE going to add any Episode VII battles into this game? I’d be shocked if they did, honestly, but it could be the biggest DLC no-brainer in video game history. Get people hooked on what will hopefully be the most insanely beautiful Star Wars game ever, get them riled up about some spectacular battle in the next movie, and then charge them a few bucks more for supplemental downloads featuring Adam Driver fighting Gwendoline Christie, or whatever actually happens in the film. Check out the game video released for E3 2014 earlier this year, with eye-popping test footage.

There have been multiple mobile games that have come out in the franchise since the Star Wars: Battlefield II was released in 2005, but ten years will have passed in between console versions by the time this new one is released. Not only was a potential Part 3 partially developed before being cancelled, but there was also an online version that fell between the cracks. EA DICE owes it to the world to bring players the best lightsaber and X-Wing battles money can buy. They’re our only hope.