Star Wars Battlefront II Narrative Designer Talks Shaping Story And Levels

Star Wars Battlefront II has been very deep in controversy since its launch. The backlash over things like the “gambling”, in regards to loot boxes, the impossible progression system, which would take players a year to unlock everything, and more led to the game not selling as well at launch. Yet, it’s very easy to focus on just these things. Everyone who has played the game has noted that the gameplay itself isn’t bad at all, and the team behind the game went to great lengths to ensure that.

Mitch Dyer was the Narrative Designer for Battlefront II, and for him and the team that worked with him, the challenges of making the levels and tying it into a story that felt both functional and not repetitive was a challenge. In a stream with Gamasutra, he noted this about the “Battle for Jakku”:

“It’s the most broad, dynamic and imposing mission that we have, I think, and from a narrative perspective we needed to figure out how can we, in a level that is, one, a desert, and two, an enormous war, create interesting things for the player to do, things to propel the story forward and make her feel like an efficient and compassionate commander, but also are different from things we’ve done before.”

For Dyer, the journey for him continued as they tried to make sure that not only was every level special from the other, but also felt true to the characters themselves. He noted that Luke Skywalker mission on Philio was of particular interest to him, for in the story and layout, Luke had to work together with an Imperial soldier to try and reach a key area, and by the end, they had to like each other.

So though Battlefront II may not be the most beloved game ever, the team really did work hard on its design so that it could be truly special.