Star Wars: Battlefront developer DICE surprised long-time fans of the series when they announced the reboot wouldn't have a single-player campaign. Senior producer Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir explained in a new interview why they decided to make Battlefront a multiplayer-only affair.
In a chat with Gamespot, Ingvarsdottir said that Star Wars: Battlefront's roots are in multiplayer so the team at DICE wanted to continue that tradition:
As we concepted the game and thought about the legacy of the previous Battlefront games--they didn't really have campaigns, they've always been predominately a multiplayer franchise. That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to focus on the multiplayer.
Ingvarsdottir added that multiplayer has been their "pure" focus from the beginning. That suggests that the studio didn't just chop out a single-player campaign so they could finish the game on time.
The original Battlefront and its sequel did have single-player modes but Ingvarsdottir's not wrong in saying they weren't really campaigns. The term "campaigns" generally means tight, scripted experiences with original content. However, Battlefront's past single-player campaigns were made up of bot matches set in the multiplayer maps that were then strung together with cutscenes.
DICE has already said that players can fight bots without an Internet connection. These matches presumably won't be accompanied by any kind of story, though:
A Battlefield: Bad Company-style campaign starring front line soldiers in the Empire vs Rebel Alliance war would be great but it sounds like DICE is more concerned about getting Star Wars: Battlefront's multiplayer right. They're probably right in assuming that most players will be buying the game for its online modes.
The downside to focusing just on multiplayer is that there's more pressure for DICE to really kick ass on that front. Specializing is only a good strategy if you're good at your specialty. Battlefront's multiplayer is going to need to be deep and satisfying to justify the $60 price tag. Otherwise the game could end up like Titanfall: a solid multiplayer game that wasn't widely accepted because it had too little content to offset the lack of a proper story mode.
Star Wars: Battlefront will debut on November 17th in North America and November 20th in Europe for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Gamers who pre-order will get two free maps that set up Star Wars: The Force Awakens on December 1st. Everyone else who owns the game can download these maps the following week.
