Star Wars Battlefront II"s gameplay was officially unveiled at the EA Play event today, with the publisher showing off a trailer set on the map "Assault on Theed". It was revealed back in April that EA is looking into ditching the season pass for Star Wars Battlefront II, and today, the publisher confirmed this to be true.
In place of a season pass, the game will offer periodical content drops completely free of charge, a la Titanfall 2. The first piece of content will arrive in December hosting Finn and Captain Phasma, as well as planet Crait, seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi"s first trailer.
Speaking to GameSpot, the game"s design director Niklas Fegraeus said this change in DLC direction is to keep the community from splintering between multiple expansions, which was a significant problem in the previous game, adding that "No one will ever be locked away by some purchase that they made".
However, with the removal of a season pass, arrives microtransactions to the game, but thankfully, all content that will be up for purchase will also be unlockable by just playing the game. Fegraeus elaborated on the new system as follows:
"When you want to progress and get stuff, you can either play the game and when you play you earn the in-game currency, and with that you can spend towards whatever you want, if you want to accelerate that, if you can"t play for a week, you can purchase that. The important thing is everything can be earned [through gameplay]. If you"re someone who spends time on the game, we love you, do your thing, do what you want to do. If you don"t have the time, you can spend money and we love you as well. It"s your choice."
Fegraeus also said there will be no microtransactions which will offer gameplay advantages, stating, "That"s not how it works. No one can say, "I"m going to spend my zillion dollars and then I"m going to dominate." That"s not how it works."
In addition to the multiplayer, the game will arrive with a full-fledged, original story campaign set between Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 is slated for release on November 17 for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 with a $59.99 price tag. Anyone who pre-orders the game will receive access to the game"s beta period three days earlier than everyone else, among other bonuses. Meanwhile, pre-ordering the $79.99 Star Wars Battlefront II: Elite Trooper Deluxe Edition will guarantee a three-day early access to the full game.