Unlike the last Battlefront game, Star Wars Battlefront 2 is bringing players a full, single-player campaign, complete with a story that has yet to be told in the Star Wars universe. A new trailer, which debuted as part of Disney’s D23 event, takes a deep dive into the story of the upcoming first-person shooter.
The developer diary for Star Wars Battlefront 2 goes deeper into the story of Iden Versio, a special operations Imperial commander who witnesses the destruction of the second Death Star from Endor. The rest of her tale is told directly after, filling in some of the gaps about what happened in the universe following the Emperor’s death.
Game Director Mark Thompson explains that Star Wars has never really explored the Imperial perspective of the conflict, but that’s exactly what Battlefront 2 is setting out to do. The game will show the Imperials as people and how the Empire works from the inside. It’s within that setting that the developers say they have created a dramatic and essential story to distill down what that experience would be like, especially in light of having the Emperor gone.
The story proper will follow Inferno Squad, a three-person black operations unit working within the Empire’s military. Players will fill the shoes of Iden Versio, played by True Blood actress Janina Gavankar. Iden is a character who is the cream of the crop, who grew up in a military academy as a child and was groomed to become the elite soldier she is in the game.
She is joined by her squadmates, Hask and Del. Hask is described as a zealot—a true believer in the Empire, its cause, and its purpose. Meanwhile, Del is an experienced traveler of the galaxy who grew up on Coruscant and looks to add a bit of humor to the story. And, as is a trademark of the Star Wars franchise, family plays a role in the story, which manifests in the presence of Iden Versio’s father, an admiral of the Imperial fleet.
If everything with this dedicated campaign goes as planned for developers Motive and DICE, Battlefront 2 could hit all the right notes for Star Wars fans with a never-before-told story. Of course, the verdict will have to wait until the game launches this fall.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 launches on November 17, 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
