Last year’s Star Wars Battlefront may not have been exactly the follow-up to the original games that fans were looking for, but it was a broadly enjoyable shooter nonetheless. Now, EA has revealed that the game’s previously announced sequel is on track for a late 2017 release.
Speaking on an investor call yesterday, EA’s chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen, stated that the Battlefront sequel is expected to hit “a year from now.” It remains to be seen whether the publisher will field a second FPS in the packed holiday release schedule, as it did this year with Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1.
“We’re working very hard on making sure that is an extremely deep and engaging offering,” said Jorgenson, according to a report from Polygon. There’s speculation that he might be referring to the addition of a single-player campaign, something that many players were disappointed to see omitted from last year’s release.
Battlefront is leading the charge in terms of EA’s Star Wars content, but it’s certainly not the only project that’s in the works. The company holds console exclusivity on the license, and several different studios are currently in the midst of development on various titles.
Amy Hennig, best known for her work on the Uncharted series, is helming a third-person action game at Dead Space developer Visceral Games. Meanwhile, Respawn Entertainment is expected to shift its focus to a Star Wars title now that Titanfall 2 has been released.
As far as Battlefront goes, we’ll undoubtedly hear much more about its sequel over the next several months if it’s set to release this time next year. Given the particular focus on military operations in this year’s cinematic Star Wars release, Rogue One, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the movie have a major influence on the game.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?