Star Wars Battlefront III

I've been dreaming about a third Star Wars Battlefront game ever since I got Battlefront II, and I had huge plans; in my head, I was integrating pretty much every Star Wars game I had at the time.

Nowadays, after learning more about the world of gaming, I've figured out that the way to put this title together would be to take what the last two games did and expand on it, making all the improvements I want and can think of and such.

So basically, Battlefront III would have the same pattern of fighting it out in two teams on a given map from the Star Wars universe. This title, however, would have advanced graphics from the other two, more units, and more inclusive maps. It will also be developed by good old Pandemic, so that the spirit of the series isn't lost, and it's infused with the finesse of the other games.

BUT, you should all remember that an official Star Wars Battlefront III could come out; in fact, according to my research, there's probably one coming out reasonably soon. So, if that happens, then this sequel will count as the next one in line to whichever one has already been released. This may end up being the fourth, fifth, or whichever in the series.

Starting Modes
Every Battlefront game is incredibly complex, and I don't want to get lost with this idea, so I'm gonna start with the main menu and then delve deeper into each mode.

So here are the main modes:

Singleplayer
This one will be the standard, meat-and-potatoes version of gameplay where you have a few different options of playing; these will include Historical Campaign, Galactic Conquest, Instant Action, and a new style called Strategy Command. I'll go deeper into these modes later, and they will be available in a multiplayer mode as well, but the gist of this is that you can do any of these four modes yourself with this option.

Multiplayer / Splitscreen
As I said before, this mode would have the same four battle modes as Singleplayer, but they all involve more than one player somehow. Obviously, this game would accomodate online multiplayer action; the way this would work is that you can play Historical Campaign, Galactic Conquest, and Instant Action as a free-for-all death match or in two teams against one another, and in Strategy Command, you go against a scond taker in a one-on-one VS. Match. It may end up allowing four players, like a two-on-two but that would seem a bit overcrowded.

Anyway, in addition to online multiplayer, you can also carry on the tradition of the other Star Wars Battlefront games and play with up to three other players in a splitscreen, with the same basic multiplayer rules as online. This way, you can play with the rest of your family and friends. Clearly.

Options
I'm not going to go into intimate detail about the options, suffice it to say that there will be the option of turning Friendly Fire on and off, toggling heroes and villains, etc. More important options will be changeable in the actual, individual game modes. This will include number of units, HUD options, and maybe even level of health per unit.

Gameplay Modes
As you saw above, there are going to be four gameplay modes; three of them will be ones that have existed since the beginning, which are Historical Campaign, Galactic Conquest, and Instant Action. I will aalso be adding a fourth mode that is a strategy game somewhat like Fire Emblem, called Strategy Command. But I'll describe them in greater depth below!

Historical Campaign
Historical Campaign is a basic story mode where you play through special battles intended to re-enact famous events in the Star Wars saga. Now, the first and second games in the Battlefront series took two different directions with Historical Campaign; the first one had it so that you simply battle to win, while the second one only gave you victory when you fulfilled certain objectives. In the spirit of unity, Battlfront III will combine these two elements; Historical Campaign will be playable in four factions as usual; the CIS, the Republic, the Rebels, and the Empire. In the other three modes of gameplay, you can pit these factions against each other however you please, but in this mode, certain factions will go against each other according to what happened in the movies. That is, the CIS goes against the Republic and the Empire against the Rebels.

In this title, Historical Campaign will be a series of varying missions giving in one version a more detailed rendition of what happened in the movies. Still, it may end up having other non-canon campaigns for diversity. Anyway, the individual missions would be a mixture of capturing and holding positions and completing certain tasks, and simply battling to win no matter what the conditions. This way, it stays unpredictable and fun, while remaining true to the series.

Galactic Conquest
Galactic Conquest is the much-underrated marathon mode of the Battlefront games where you and another faction go against each other in an epic war to see who can conquer all planets in the system first. Now, although I was really overwhelmed by the Galactic Conquest mode in Battlefront II at first, I've found that it's definitely the best way to play. In case you didn't know the basic layout of the second rendition, it's pretty simple: you and the opposing faction travel through main ships from planet to planet, and whenever one ship moves onto an enemy planet, it launches a ground battle with possible in-game bonuses on each side. Both sides come away with credits, but the winner earns more credits in the session, and both sides can use their credits to buy the aforementioned (fancy word alert) bonuses or new infantry units to be used in battle. Whenever the two motherships move onto each other, it launches a space battle instead of a ground battle. First side to conquer all planets comes away the winner, and the whole process is way longer than in the first game.

The truth is, though, that this method of gameplay can be understood pretty easily, and it's the most realistic way of doing it. So because of this, I'm only going to make a couple of tweaks to the system. In this game, you won't just earn a certain amount of credits for a victory in battle. For example, if you beat the other side by an enormous amount and had an incredibly high level of accuracy overall, you would earn a just-as-enormous amount of credits while the other side would earn hardly any. Similarly, if you only beat the other side by about 1 man, both sides will earn roughly the same amount of credits. This way, there will be a definite reason to fight as well as possible.

Lastly, I would also provide a good reason to conquer as many planets as you can; for every planet you conquer, you can call in 50 more men for your next battler. This you can do at any time, and if you have to re-conquer the planet, you can only call in 30. Of course, you can only do it once for every time you conquer the planet, so you have to be selective about when you do it, adding yet another strategic aspect of gameplay (that's wassup)!

Instant Action
The idea behind Instant Action is simple; you and an enemy army of a different faction enter a pitched battle to the end on a selected map from the Star Wars universe. Instant Action is by far my favorite mode in the game, because it's straightforward, but also because it's the most customizable, especially as of Battlefront II. Because of this, Instant Action will be the mode with the most options to be changed. Included in this selection will be at least all the options from the previous title, such as the amount of reinforcements in each battle, and more notably, the conditions set for Heroes and Villains for each faction. Now, these settings will be things like whether they even appear in battle, and conditions on which they appear. In terms of which Heroes and illains will be in the game, I'll list that later.

Also, I will be listing the available maps in Instant Action later on. Suffice it to say that I'll be bringing back stages from both of the past two games.

Strategy Command
The basic spirit of the Battlefront series is seeing what battle is like from the perspective of the soldiers in the Star Wars universe. So in an attempt to spread Battlefront into the demographic of people who are used the battling games being strategy games (plus out of my own love for the Fire Emblem series), I thought I'd add in this mode.

True to what I said before, this mode would operate in very much the same way as Fire Emblem. The field can have up to 14 parties of characters, up to seven on each side. You can configure how many of each different type of party is on each team, although you can make it random for either. Now, as I just said, there are different types of parties to correspond with how many different types of units are in each faction. Alternatively, you can randomly configure the types of units for each party.

You can move however many parties you have on your team around the battlefield during your turn, and position them strategically to bring down all the parties on the opposing side. Each party of a different type will have a group of units with different stats (which can be altered slightly beforehand), such as experience, and you can cycle attacks by each individual unit for each of their turns depending on what they have.

Command Posts are used in this level as well, and they can act something like the Pink Squares in Fire Emblem that heal party members. If a party can make it to an enemy command post and stay there for three turns, without being defeated by the opponent, then that faction claims the post. You can also reconfigure your party units from Command Posts.

Gameplay
The actual gameplay of the game would be quite similar to that of the previous two games, involving crouching, crawling, rolling, vehicle use, weapon usage, jumping, reloading, and using squad commands. The squad commands from the first game will make a return, being assigned to the four directions of the D-Pad. Targeting will instead be initiated upon hitting the given enemy.

This gameplay, of course, will be made much more fluid and the graphics will be more precise, such that you can see enemies from far off, as though looking for them in real life. As for the physics, they will remain largely the same, but the animations will probably be the things to change. For example, when force jumping multiple times, it will not look like jumping again in mid-air.

The most notable addition to the gameplay will be the inclusion of instant transition from air to space battle. You can choose to start off either in space on a cruiser or on the ground. Every map that includes some kind of significant outdoor area will have this feature; however, there will be levels made available that take place solely in space, and the same different gameplay modes (such as CTF, Assault, etc.) will be included.

Battlefields
Taking into account the disappointment I felt when I saw that there were so many stages in Battlefront II that had been dropped from the first one, I plan to include my favorite battlefirelds from both games, maybe even all of the stages from both, and add a few that I feel are missing from the series altogether. These will probably include things like the streets of Coruscant and a CIS Battle Cruiser. *Note: While this used to be separated into the Temple and Arena areas, this map will be both of them rolled into one giant battlefield. In the same way there are large structures in the Temple map, the Arena will be one of these massive structures far off on one end.
 * Bespin Platforms (Heroes and Villains: Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Plo Koon, Savage Opress)
 * CIS Trade Federation Cruiser
 * Cloud City
 * Coruscant Streets
 * Dagobah
 * Death Star
 * Endor
 * Felucia
 * Gardulla's Palace
 * Geonosis
 * Hoth
 * Jabba's Palace
 * Jedi Temple
 * Kamino
 * Kashyyyk Docks
 * Kashyyyk Islands
 * Korriban
 * Mos Eisley
 * Mustafar
 * Mygeeto
 * Naboo Plains
 * Ord Mantell
 * Polis Massa
 * Raxus Prime
 * Rhen Var Citadel
 * Rhen Var Harbor
 * Tantive IV
 * Tatooine Dune Sea
 * Theed City
 * Utapau
 * Yavin 4*

Units
The roster of Battlefront III will be similar in nature to that of the last two games; you will have your basic units of a pilot, engineer, soldier, vanguard, sniper, and special units, as well as the space battle classes (you can find a list of the last game's units here). Now, four more special units were introduced in Battlefront II, so it would only make sense to add special units to the factions this time around as well. This will, of course, work by adding one to every faction.

It should also be noted that the same units from the last game will be brought back in this game, but it's very likely that their basic weaponry and appearance will change as always. For example, the Bothan Spy will probably have different weapons, and the Wookiee Warrior will be faster and more realistic looking. For information's sake, I will absolutely detail the new special units that will be added to the fray.

Air Battle Droid (B1-A)


These droids only made an appearance in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and I was disappointed that they received such little attention, even in the one game, because I thought they were really cool droids, and were actually surprisingly challenging to beat, even for a jedi. So, I thought that these guys should be included in one of the Battlefront games, as I think they would be interesting to fight in that format.

Considering how they served a rather straightforward purpose in the Revenge of the Sith game, the air battle droids would be given a greater array of weapons to fight with. Obviously, they will have their arm blades and arm blasters, and those will likely be the two primary weapons. As a secondary weapon, they'll have small shields, much like those of the droidekas, and they will be able to move while having them activated; however, it will have limited duration, which can be reduced by attack (although it will regenerate), and will leave part of them vulnerable. This can be the only secondary weapon, considering the fact that two primary weapons and a single secondary weapon is a very common combination in the series. Worst case scenario, they may be given missiles as well.

These guys will be very similar to the Jet Trooper in that they will also be able to fly, but they will hover more than they will fly, so that will be a notable difference.

Summary
Primary weapons: 1. Arm-Mounted Blasters; 2. Arm-Mounted Blades

Secondary weapon: 1. Shield (and possibly 2. Minor Missiles (5 total))

Clone Assassin


Once again, the clone assassin made his first and main appearance in the Revenge of the Sith video game, and they only ever appeared in two levels, but they still remained by far my favorite enemy in the game, because they weren't ones that you could necessarily power through. Their AI was excellent, and if you tried a series of straight-on attacks against them, then you would get nowhere, so you had to outfox them to move on.

Since my theme for the Battlefront III special units is melee, these guys came into my head and I very much wanted to have them be the new units for the Republic. Thusly, I did some research on them and I found out that their main weapons are their arm vibroblades and blaster pistols. From this, I determined that they could use these weapons, in addition to their reflexes, to be a decent addition to the clone army.

So, their primary weapon will be their vibroblades, with which they will be able to perform fast melee moves, and their second primary weapon will be a decent-quality blaster pistol that they can use to defend themselves in a fire fight. Now, since the assassins are predominantly hand-to-hand characters, I decided to have both of their secondary weapons reflect their enhanced physical ability. Both of these will run on recharging bars, but they will do so in different ways.

The first one will be a stun ability that you run out of after one use; it's meant to be used in a tight spot to temporarily incapacitate the enemy it's used on; for example, if you're fighting a droideka, it can give you a major advantage. The second one is one that runs out progressively, and it temporarily puts your surroundings in slow motion if you're the player using it, so that you can make a quick getaway, narrow dodge, or precise attack. However, to other human players, you just appear to be moving proportionally faster than they are.

Summary
Primary weapons: 1. Dual Vibroblades; 2. Blaster Pistol

Secondary weapons: 1. Vibration Stun; 2. Enhanced Speed

Riot Trooper


I wanted to keep to the theme of melee for this game's special units, so I thought it would be a cool idea to have the imperial unit be one with an electrostaff as a main weapon. However, I wanted the unit to be roughly the same size as the other units available in the faction, which is one of the reasons why I decided on the Riot Trooper over the other options.

The only issue is that the Riot Trooper in his original Force Unleashed incarnation was designed for close combat and so had only an electrostaff to fight with. Therefore, he will be given some more equipment other than his staff. These will probably be something like a stun pistol (since Riot Troopers have been known to use one) and perhaps a bonus effect like temporary invincibility or rally (for those of you who are wondering, rally provides an increase in defense). If anyone has a suggestion for some equipment, do post a comment down below!

Summary
Primary weapons: 1. Electrostaff; 2. Stun Pistol

Secondary weapons: 1. Invincibility (7 seconds per 1 power-up); 2. Rally (10 seconds per 1 power-up)

Rebel Paladin
The Rebel Paladin will be the only special unit in this group that is mostly made up, since after poring through a list of the different variations of rebel soldiers, I couldn't find any existing types that could believably be in a? Battlefront game. The good news, of course, is that I? do have a theme going for all of the special units, and so I designed the special unit around melee capabilities.

Now, bear in mind, there are a lot of other generic melee weapons in? Star Wars, not just the lightsaber. As such, I decided to go with something that the rebels would believably have access to. After browsing through the options, I thought that it would be fitting for the Rebel Paladin to have a sword as a weapon. However, it wouldn't be prudent to have their swords be made of a rare material, as it would make no sense for regiments of soldiers to have standard weapons made of a rare substance. As such, I decided to have the swords be made of obsidian.

You may find this choice to be an odd one, but it would make sense considering how obsidian swords usually come from Mustafar, a Separatist planet, which I seem to remember reading ended up siding with the Alliance.

Anyhow, the Paladins will obviously need to have some other form of weapon, so I thought they might be the ones to have a commando pistol; this way, in case you aren't good with the sword or would rather have a ranged attack in certain situations, you have that option.

For a secondary weapon, I figured the Paladins should have some form of explosive, but basic grenades are already a common one, so I decided to be creative and give them fire charge-like weapons, ones which work like grenades but explode on contact with something. The other secondary weapon will probably be the Rage bonus, which increases attack power.

It should also be noted that the appearance of the Paladins will be influenced to a great degree by the appearance of the Rebel SpecForce troopers, which were originally intended to be the special units for this idea, but were replaced because they are a select group of specialists for covert missions.

Summary
Primary weapons: 1. Obsidian Sword; 2. Commando Pistol

Secondary weapons: 1. Contact Grenades; 2. Rage (Attack Increase)

Heroes and Villains
I really enjoyed the inclusion of special hero and villain characters in Star Wars Battlefront II, and I thought that with smoother controls and greater differentiation between characters, the true potential of this feature could be unlocked. As such, while the roster of heroes and villains will be similar to that of the previous game, they won't have the same basic movesets like before. However, the animations, effects of moves, and execution of moves will be different. For example, there will be no cloning of movements between two jedi, as with the last game, and lightsaber attacks will noticeably impact units, but will not knock them down.

I'm going to make a list of all the heroes and villains to be included in the game, where they will appear, and what factions they'll be assigned to, as well as what weapons they'll have.

Republic
( * Mind Trick  would be a new force power that, depending on how long it's been since the last use of the force, allows its user to incapacitate his/her opponent or, in some cases, turn his/her opponent against its teammates.)
 * Obi-Wan Kenobi (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Push, Mind Trick*.)
 * Yoda (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Blast**, Force Pull.)
 * Anakin Skywalker (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Saber Throw, Force Blast.)
 * Mace Windu (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Push, Force Pull.)
 * Ki-Adi-Mundi (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Shield***, Force Pull.)
 * Kit Fisto (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Push, Force Shield.)
 * Aayla Secura (Primary Weapons: Dual Lightsabers; Secondary Weapons: Saber Throw, Force Pull.)
 * Luminara Unduli (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Saber Throw, Force Shield.)
 * Plo Koon (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Blast, Force Push.)
 * Qui-Gon Jinn (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Pull, Mind Trick)

( **  Force Blast   would be a new offensive force power that would spread out in a small arc in front of its user and deliver a sort of vibrating shock to all opponents affected.  This would cause minor damage delivered over a few seconds, and it would be different from the standard Force Push in that it doesn't send opponents flying backward.)

( ***  Force Shield   would be a defensive move with a few seconds of delay between each use that acts similarly to a Droideka's shield, except weaker, with a shorter duration.  However, it can still be helpful depending on how it's used.)

Rebels
(*Note: The Advanced Fusion Cutter is simply one that is 150% (1.5 times) more efficient than the standard Fusion Cutter.)
 * Luke Skywalker (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Saber Throw, Force Push)
 * Han Solo (Primary Weapons: DD44 Blaster Pistol, Advanced Fusion Cutter*; Secondary Weapons: Detpack, Dead Eye (Accuracy Increase)**)
 * Princess Leia (Primary Weapon: Sporting Blaster; Secondary Weapons: Thermal Detonators, Invincibility)
 * Chewbacca (Primary Weapons: Bowcaster, Homing Missiles; Secondary Weapons: Time Bombs, Recon Droid)
 * Ben Kenobi (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Pull, Mind Trick)
 * Galen Marek (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Blast, Force Lightning)
 * Lando Calrissian (Primary Weapons: Rapid Fire Blaster Rifle, Sonic Blaster Pistol; Primary Weapons: Thermal Detonators)
 * Yoda (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Push, Force Pull)
 * Kyle Katarn (Primary Weapons: Lightsaber, Bryar Pistol; Secondary Weapons: Force Lightning, Force Shield)

(**Note: This bonus's effect is a slight gravity of shots to nearby targets, which is how it increases accuracy.)

CIS

 * Count Dooku (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Lightning, Force Pull)
 * Darth Maul (Primary Weapon: Saberstaff; Secondary Weapons: Saber Throw, Force Grip)
 * Jango Fett (Primary Weapons: Dual Westar Pistols, Flamethrower; Secondary Weapons: Thermal Detonators, Guided Missiles) (Also has a jetpack for flying.)
 * General Grievous (Primary Weapons: Dual Lightsabers, Rapid Fire Blaster Pistol; Secondary Weapon: Four Lightsabers, Rage)
 * Asajj Ventress (Primary Weapons: Dual Lightsabers; Secondary Weapons: Starblades, Force Grip)
 * Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine) (Primary Weapon: Lightsaber; Secondary Weapons: Force Lightning, Force Push)
 * Cad Bane (Primary Weapons: BlasTech LL-30 Plaster Pistols, Flamethrower; Secondary Weapons: Mines, Bolas)
 * Savage Opress (Primary Weapon: Saberstaff; Secondary Weapons: Force Blast, Force Blast, Force Choke)

Empire

 * Darth Vader
 * Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious)
 * Boba Fett
 * Anakin Skywalker
 * Darth Starkiller
 * Desann
 * Bossk
 * Alora