star wars battlefront

Few games have brought the world of Star Wars to life quite like Star Wars Battlefront. DICE's most recent entry in the franchise is arguably one of the most beautiful games of the past year, let alone one of the best-looking Star Wars video games. It's fitting then that Hot Toys, purveyor of some of the best-looking Star Wars figures, would take the chance on bringing some of those Battlefront characters to life in toy form. Rather than focus on the more familiar faces of the original Star Wars trilogy however, Hot Toys has honed in on crafting some of the best Stormtrooper figures money can buy. After already releasing a figure based on Battlefront's Shocktrooper, the Hong Kong company has now turned its detail-oriented eye to the Jumptrooper.

Stop the presses. The greatest news to ever news has just been newsed. Lando Calrissian is coming to Star Wars Battlefront. Also Dengar. But more importantly, Lando "King of the Capes" Calrissian is going to be a playable character in Battlefront. Generations of players have been waiting for this moment since they were born, and now we are on the precipice of a new dawn in third-person Star Wars action. A dawn so handsome, so charismatic and so silky smooth, it's amazing that one single video game can handle bringing the Cloud City Charmer to life.

Since its launch in November, millions of battles have been waged for galactic supremacy in Star Wars Battlefront. Through all that time, DICE has kept its plans for expansion relatively under wraps, save for the free Battle for Jakku update released during Star Wars: The Force Awakens' launch. Now that the dust has settled a bit, the developer's finally pulling back the curtain on the add-ons planned for the space shooter, and it looks like fans of the classic trilogy will have plenty to look forward to throughout 2016. New maps and modes are great and all, but it's really all about the extra hero characters and the clothes they wear. Most importantly, DICE is releasing a free update this week that will add Hoth costumes for Luke and Han when they're present on the icy planet's maps. Luke and his busted up face are nice and all, but I'm more excited to see how DICE plans to handle the great brown/blue debate fans of Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back have waged for decades. Well, so long as they haven't seen the irrefutable proof in the behind the scenes documentaries on the Blu-ray collection.

There's an insurmountable amount of hype surrounding Star Wars this year. From the figures to the books to the trading cards to the games and movies, if it has Star Wars in the name, people are excited. If you can somehow manage to tie one of those things to another, the hype levels begin approaching stratospheric levels. While we were told Star Wars Battlefront was going to be one of the first places we'd see the destitute landscape of Jakku, a planet that's been focused on quite a bit in trailers for The Force Awakens, we had little idea of what exactly that meant. With today's teaser trailer for the new map, questions of "What will it be like?" were immediately replaced with statements of "I want to go to there." Taking place 29 years before The Force Awakens, the Battle of Jakku happened about a year after the Battle of Endor, which signaled the first indication the Rebel Alliance might rid the galaxy of the Empire's influence. There were numerous conflicts after the destruction of the second Death Star, as much of the literature under the "Journey to The Force Awakens" banner has revealed. Though Jakku's present in lots of Star Wars' recent content, Battlefront will present our first actual on-the-ground glimpse of that landmark conflict, including watching those massive Star Destroyers fall from orbit in magnificent fashion.

It's a big year for Star Wars, in case you didn't know. Aside from a wealth of new action figures and collectibles, books, comics, and that new movie or whatever, there's also going to be a new installment in the fan-favorite Star Wars Battlefront series. It's been too long since players have been able to pick up an E-11 blaster rifle and defend the likes of Mos Eisley or Hoth from the Rebel Scum (TM), but soon we'll be able to travel back to that galaxy far, far away to blast the Empire's enemies back from whence they came. During Sony's PlayStation press event at Paris Games Week, DICE unveiled a new gameplay trailer for Battlefront which offered the first looks at newly-announced Heroes like Leia, Han and Palpatine in action. There's a lot of trench warfare happening, as well as some questionable voice acting, but Battlefront appears to be shaping up to be everything fans have been waiting for from the series since it vanished those many years ago.

With less than a month to go until Star Wars Battlefront arrives, DICE and EA are finally sharing more details on the heroes and villains joining the battle on both sides of the virtual war in that galaxy far, far away. Already, players knew familiar faces like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader would be part of the action, alongside the bounty hunter no one can seem to get enough of, Boba Fett. Those three won't be the only special characters fans get to play with, as the sides are going to get evened out a bit with these new additions. Though Leia is a Jedi, during Battlefront's timeline, she doesn't quite know it yet. Since she's best known in the original trilogy for being an incredible leader, building her character for the game was a bit of a challenge for DICE. As lead hero designer Jamie Keen described on the PlayStation Blog, Leia's tricky to create as a unique character since she doesn't have a favorite weapon or visible ability in the films. With that in mind, DICE ended up focusing on her leadership abilities.

I've often thought about what it would be like to actually take part in the Battle of Hoth. In The Empire Strikes Back, we saw only a glimpse of the chaos that ensued once the Imperial Army found the Rebel base on the icy planet, and didn't truly get an idea of the conflict that broke out. It makes sense considering the films follow such a small cast of characters, and can't just spend hours on showing the ins and outs of one space battle. That's why I was excited to dive head first the galactic civil war with Star Wars Battlefront later this year. At least, until I played a little bit of the beta this week at New York Comic Con. Now, don't take that to mean that I've lost all my interest. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'm just not all that interested in living out the Battle of Hoth from the Rebel perspective anymore. While the films and comics and books have always talked about the strength and power of the Imperial side of the conflict, you don't truly grasp how daunting a task it must have been for the Rebel Alliance to pull out such tremendous victories until you're planted firmly in their boots. It's impressive that any of the ships escaping Hoth made it out of there alive, especially if any of those Rebel troopers fought as poorly as I did.

EA and DICE have announced even more details about next month's big Star Wars Battlefront beta. The beta itself will run for five days, giving PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One gamers access to Survival Missions on Tattooine, where you'll have to survive ongoing waves of Imperial forces, including Stormtroopers, AT-ST walkers, TIE Fighters and more. You can also try the Drop Zone mode on Sullust, which is comprised of 8v8 multiplayer matches with king of the hill-style gameplay. Lastly, you can partake in the big Walker Assault multiplayer bouts on Hoth. It's a massive 20v20 war between the Rebel Alliance and Empire with Y-Wings, Snowspeeders, AT-ATs and more.

EA and DICE have unveiled some new details about Star Wars Battlefront's anticipated open beta launching next month.

According to Polygon, Star Wars Battlefront's Drop Zone mode takes the Empire and Rebel Alliance war and puts it in a massive match of king of the hill. The Imperial and Rebel soldiers will have to duke it out and capture/defend pods that drop from the sky in 8 vs. 8 multiplayer battles. This marks the seventh game mode revealed for Battlefront, and you're going to have to fight to defend or capture the escape pods that drop throughout the map. Drop Zone matches will be 10-minutes-long apiece, but can end early if a team has captured all five pods.