About the game
Star Wars Battlefront II is a 2017 action shooter developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It is the fourth main installment of the Star Wars: Battlefront series and a sequel to the 2015 reboot. It has single-player and multiplayer modes. The campaign is set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens and follows Iden Versio, commander of the Empire's Inferno Squad.
It is a third and first-person shooter with ground battles as soldiers and space battles in starfighters. It spans the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War and the war between the Resistance and the First Order. At launch there were 15 locations, including Kamino, Naboo, Hoth, Endor and Jakku, and more were added later.
Development was announced on May 10, 2016. Motive Studios worked on the single-player campaign and Criterion Games on starfighter gameplay. The 2015 game's Season Pass was dropped because it was thought to split the player community, and all later content came as free updates. A beta ran from October 4 to 11, 2017, and a 10-hour trial arrived for EA Access subscribers on November 9.
Before launch the game was criticised when players found that loot boxes tied to progression could give a real advantage to people who paid. EA first defended them, then turned off microtransactions in the game, and later introduced a new progression system.
It was released worldwide on November 17, 2017, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows, to mixed reviews. Reviewers praised the multiplayer, balance and visuals and criticised the campaign, microtransactions and progression. By December 2017 it had sold 9 million copies, short of EA's 10 million target. Updates ended on April 29, 2020, and the Celebration Edition followed on December 5, 2019. The complete edition joined Xbox Game Pass on December 19, 2024, and player numbers rose sharply in 2025.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 66 out of 100 from 36 reviews (Xbox One). Individual reviews: Destructoid 5/10, Edge 4/10, EGM 7/10, Game Informer 6.5/10, Game Revolution 2.5/5, GamesRadar+ 4/5, GameSpot 6/10, Giant Bomb 2/5.
Extra content
There was no Season Pass. All new content came as free seasonal updates until April 29, 2020.
- The Last Jedi Season: Free seasonal update
- Solo: A Star Wars Story Season: Free seasonal update
- Clone Wars Season: Free seasonal update
- The Rise of Skywalker Season: Free seasonal update
- Original Trilogy update: Co-op mode, four weapons, the Infiltrator class and a Geonosis map
- Rogue One update: Scarif map, new skins and Instant Action Missions
Good to know
- The loot box row before launch led EA to switch off microtransactions at release and rebuild progression later.
- A tie-in novel, Inferno Squad by Christie Golden, came out on July 25, 2017 as a prelude to the campaign.
- The Celebration Edition was released on December 5, 2019.
- The game never had a Season Pass, and free updates ended on April 29, 2020.
- Resurrection, a campaign epilogue, adds three of the achievements.
Made by
Creative Director Bernd Diemer, Producer Paul Keslin, Producer Craig McLeod, Producer James Salt, Design Director Niklas Fegraeus, Lead Designer Linus Josephson, Writer Walt Williams, Writer Mitch Dyer, Art Director Andrew Hamilton, Composer Gordy Haab.
