Push Back The Empire In Star Wars Battlefront’s Battle Of Jakku

Beyond the lovingly recreated locales set within the Star Wars galaxy, the incredible photogrammetric visuals, and sounds which conjure up childhood memories, one of the biggest complaints directed at Battlefront is that it lacks content.

Out now for those with a pre-order code, or on December 8th for all owners of the game, The Battle of Jakku adds a fifth planet to the mix, borrowing a setting from the soon to be released film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. However, the battles depicted within the game don’t take place in the same time period, instead telling the back-story of Jakku and how it came to be embroiled in the galactic war between the Rebels and the Empire, a year after the events of Return of the Jedi.

With a huge space battle raging on overhead, an operation to try and capture an Imperial Star Destroyer sees it scuttled instead, crashing down into the planet below. This huge ship towers almost completely intact over the battleground of Graveyard of Giants, the signature map of the DLC, with the new Turning Point game mode telling of how a rebel assault pushes through the detritus to try and capture a hastily constructed Imperial rallying point.

The sand dunes are now strewn with the wreckage of ships and vehicles, both big and small, making for a map that’s both wide and open, but has a lot of cover that you can try to use. Look up into the sky, and you see hundred and thousands of laser beams firing in a vast aerial dogfight, while capital ships also continue to battle. It’s just a shame that wreckage doesn’t fall from the sky to add to the clutter.

The action on the ground strives to be similarly epic. Turning Point is a clever twist on the traditional Rush mode from Battlefield games, where the rebels must move forward to capture and hold control points and push the defensive line back, time and again. Cleverly, the battle starts weighted in the Rebellion’s favour, as they must only capture one of three control points, but it slowly shifts towards the Empire, as this diminishes down to just a single point for the fourth and final defensive line, allowing them to focus their efforts much better.

While Graveyard of Giants adds a fifth map to Supremacy, Walker Assault and Fighter Squadron, it’s disappointing that Turning Point doesn’t come to the other large scale maps. It’s a good game mode that could add some much needed variety to the other 40-player game types.

On the other end of the scale, Goazan Badlands is the Jakku map added for modes like Blast or Cargo. It too takes inspiration from the intense battle and the wreckage left behind, with an AT-AT crumpled against the wall of the central canyon. It’s a fairly traditional layout, with three paths that run the length of the map, but with that simplicity comes a good flow and an ease of understanding where you are.

The Battle of Jakku really is just the first step of DICE’s plans to expand the game, with more maps and modes planned, both for free and as part of the season pass. It doesn’t really add too much that would be able to address complaints about content, but there’s a pair of good maps and a great new game mode that tie in nicely to the impending film.