Star Wars Battlefront has a £40 Season Pass
Plus more on the new Hero Hunt multiplayer mode.
It's hardly surprising but here it is anyway: Star Wars Battlefront has a Season Pass. It buys four planned, upcoming expansion packs "filled with new content that will take you to new locations across a galaxy far, far away", says the Battlefront website. Season Passers also get a two-week head start on expansion content as well as an exclusive 'Shoot First' emote.
The Season Pass will be bundled into a newly announced Ultimate Edition of the game, which costs £95 on PC (Origin). It's the Deluxe Edition plus Season Pass. The Season Pass alone costs £40.
Presumably the Season Pass does not include the free Battle of Jakku DLC, coming early December, that ties into the upcoming Force Awakens Star Wars film. If you've pre-ordered the game, Jakku unlocks 1st December; everyone else need wait until 8th December.
Remember, Battlefront won't have microtransactions.
What's going to be in the DLC? It's worth remembering we haven't yet experienced all the modes in the full game yet, nor all of the 12 multiplayer maps planned for launch (more if you include the single-player or co-op Mission maps). Multiplayer modes available in the beta are Drop Zone and Walker Assault, but in the full game are also Supremacy, Fighter Squadron, Blast, Cargo and Droid Run. Those other modes are greyed out - not available - in the beta.
DICE revealed another multiplayer mode overnight in Hero Hunt - a mode sniffed out last week by people data-mining the PC Battlefront beta files. Hero Hunt pits one team of expendables versus a Hero or Villain: "Seven Imperials against Luke Skywalker? Seven Rebels battling it out against Boba Fett? In Hero Hunt, one player will experience the thrill of playing as an iconic Star Wars Battlefront Hero or Villain, facing off against ground troops from the opposing faction. Want to play as the Hero? Take them out and you'll get your chance, but remember, once you become the Hero the hunt is on."
The data-mining suggested other Heroes and Villains could be the Emperor, Han Solo and Princess Leia, but there's no whiff of Yoda yet. There's a little more information on Boba Fett in a separate article on the website.
In the beta there is only the wave-based Survival Mission available on the Tatooine map, but in the full game there will be Training Missions, Battles Missions and even Hero Battles Missions. Hero Battles cast you as one of the films' main characters. "Star Wars Battlefront Hero Battles let you live out your Star Wars battle fantasies by letting you play as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and more," says the website. "Feel the power as you master moves like Saber Rush or Force Choke as some of the most iconic characters in the galaxy."
The greyed-out Multiplayer modes in the beta are Supremacy, a 20 vs 20 control-point-capturing mode on large maps with vehicles, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader, and Boba Fett (and probably another Rebel Hero); Fighter Squadron, a 10 vs 10 aerial dogfight with extra AI craft and the Millennium Falcon and Slave I power-ups; and Blast, a smaller, quicker, 10 vs 10 mode with no vehicles or Heroes or Villains that lasts 10 minutes or until one team reaches 100 kills.
Cargo is capture-the-flag - capture-the-cargo - for teams of six, but where the score starts five-all, fluctuating to six-four if one team captures and so on, and it lasts 15 minutes; and Droid Run, where teams of six try and capture and hold three droids. Drop Zone and Walker Assault I'm sure you're already familiar with.
Star Wars Battlefront comes out in full 17th November on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The multiplayer beta runs on all three platforms until some point today - later, let's hope.
