‘Star Wars: Battlefront’ Teased By Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts has teased a new Star Wars: Battlefront game in the works.

Today during a technology conference, CFO Blake Jorgensen hinted that one of their new Star Wars games would be a Battlefront title. He said, “The opportunity to do a new Battlefront, for example, which is one of the very popular Star Wars games, or some of the other traditional games that were made, is very exciting.”

Previously Star Wars: Battlefront was released alongside the original Star Wars Trilogy DVD set and earned praise all around. Battlefront 2 continued the legacy of giving us scenarios across the film locales. One of the highlights of the game was the fact that an original hero or villain would fight alongside you depending on which side you chose to play as. The idea was to maintain control of the map, and gamers loved it.

After the fall of LucasArts, the Star Wars franchise slipped from the hands of Activision to Electronic Arts, neither of which reportedly has had a great year thus far.

Blake Jorgensen has added, “These aren’t movie games, per se, these are standalone games. But obviously they would come out near the movies and be able to tailgate off of some of the buzz that will be created around the new Star Wars movies.”

Once again, rather than mess with the canon laid down theatrically, Electronic Arts is instead basing the game on its own storyline independent of the films. They are planning to use the popularity surrounding the upcoming Star Wars films to help generate interest in the new game and it will not be based specifically on any of the films.

In the history of movie-based games, we have seen over and over that even the best intentions can turn out to be complete failures. Look at the recently released Star Trek video game, and you’ll see what happens when a developer depends too much on a film to sell a game.

Star Wars: Battlefront has proven itself before, but not in the hands of Electronic Arts. Do you think they can pull it off?