DICEs Patrick Bach explains how its bringing Star Wars Battlefront back

Hankering for more news and info on Star Wars Battlefront? Well, you're in luck. In the latest issue of Official PlayStation Magazine, the team sat down with DICE GM Patrick Bach to discuss everything from space battles to the best vehicles for laying an Imperial smackdown...

OPM: Will you include any areas from the prequel trilogy?
Patrick Bach: The whole idea and core focus for the game is to stay with the first three movies. That’s where we are. And then of course we tie into Episode VII, with the Battle of Jakku – you see the aftermath of that battle in Episode VII 30 years later. We give you the actual battle, which you won’t see in the movies.

OPM: Which elements did you want to improve from the first two Battlefront games?
PB: I think what we did was insterad of trying to build upon the old games, we went back and said let’s start over. Let’s analyse the good and the bad, like we did with old games, but it’s more about going back to the core idea that Battlefront stands for, and then building up from that. Because otherwise you will create a version of somebody else’s game, and that’s not what we do! We build our own games, we build something that breathes ‘DICE’. We wanted to take a fresh stance on the concept of Battlefront, rather than saying ‘let’s take that feature and call it the same thing’, or ‘let’s remove that feature’. It will just get messy. So you have to see it as a reboot.

OPM: Why are there no space battles in your reboot?
PB: We want players to stay in the same [environment] – we don’t want players to fly off and do something over *here*. It’s about the Battlefront experience, so we want to keep you in-atmosphere and fighting with the infantry.

OPM: Do you worry about the fan reaction to that kind of decision? Do you think they’ll understand where you’re coming from?
PB: I sure hope they’ll understand where we’re coming from! [As a studio] we have to start somewhere. You can’t do everything at once. We want to build something that’s great for what it is, and have a holistic view on what we’re trying to achieve, rather than tossing everything in there from the very start.

The latest issue of Official PlayStation Magazine, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 on the cover, is out now. You can buy a copy here or subscribe to future issues.