A long time ago in a Galaxy far away… A lady called Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog on an adventure; through trade disputes and rebellions she travelled on. When she finally landed at a studio called Visceral Games she had a story to tell… But what story will it be?
As you all may remember EA signed an exclusive deal to make Star Wars games on behalf of LucasArts/Disney. Dice’s contribution to this has just landed in the form of Battlefront and EA will have plenty more up their sleeves, for the future, I’m sure.
Amy Hennig of Uncharted fame left Naughty Dog a while ago and joined Visceral Games who are best known for making the Dead Space games. Uncharted famed for its action set pieces and Dead Space famed for its terrifying Survival Horror style… This definitely has the potential to be a match made in heaven.
I think it’s important to bear in mind the film release schedule when thinking of what EA and their many studios are up too. This year is Episode 7 and Battlefront. Given the fact that First Person Shooters are the hugest of the huge genres in gaming. I think it’s fair to expect Battlefront 2 to follow in 2 years time with Episode 8 and then Battlefront 3, 2 years after that with Episode 9 and so on.
Next year is the first anthology film, Rogue One. As we all know as gamers,film-to-game adaptations are almost always shit, they just are…
So it makes much more sense to circumvent this likely pitfall by having Visceral and Amy Hennig work on a stand alone story separate from the film entirely.
So what could they do?
I think a bounty hunter story set around a single mission. Perhaps to infiltrate a spaceship in order to steal something or perhaps assassinate a target. Or if Rogue One is indeed about a Rebel Squadron stealing the Plans to the Death Star… perhaps this game could be about the Bounty Hunters looking for the Rebels responsible and the plans themselves.
It could feature plenty of action sequences, some stealth and exploration. Perhaps there could be several paths forward providing some replay ability to the title. It could make use of Battlefront’s ability to switch between 1st and 3rd person views to satisfy both types of player as well.
If you could try talk your way through and complete the objective without firing a shot or do it the old fashioned way by shooting everything that moves… It would certainly keep it interesting; your choices affecting how the game plays out.
A nice concise Single Player Campaign is exactly what is needed if a release date in Holiday 2016 is indeed when it is due to launch, alongside/near the film. No need to mess about with unnecessary multiplayer modes etc. when a nice competent Single Player drawing on the best of Dead Space and Uncharted is waaay more interesting. That also leaves the door open to Battlefront DLC and keeping generally out the way of CoD is no bad thing.
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