Tech News: Star Wars: Battlefront release date, news and trailers

While the original Star Wars Battlefront games had their fans, anticipation for the upcoming reboot has reached fever pitch. It's a combination of factors; a new Star Wars movie is out later in the year, developer Dice has pedigree in this genre with Battlefield, and the latest generation of consoles are finally able to deliver the sort of visuals we've seen in the movies.

Battlefront is set in some of the most iconic locations from the original movies, including Hoth, Endor, and Tatooine, as well as a new location that ties into Episode VII. The game made a big impression when it was playable at E3 this year, winning the Critics' Award for Best Action Game and Best Multiplayer Game. But ahead of the game's launch in November, what do you need to know? Many bothans died to bring us this information.

It's out very soon

Battlefront will be out on November 17, 2015 in North America, November 19, 2015 in Australia and November 20, 2015 in Europe. It'll be hitting PS4, Xbox One and PC.

There won't be a single player mode

Bravely, Star Wars Battlefront is doing away with a traditional single-player campaign. If you don't have an active PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold subscription, then all you're really going to be able to do is play through the game's Missions mode either solo or in split-screen co-op. PC players don't get a split-screen mode, strangely, but at least they can play online for free without the need for a subscription.

You can play it first on Xbox One

EA Access is a service for Xbox One that allows fans of the company (a repeat winner of the "Worst Company in America" award) to play its games ahead of release. EA has said that Star Wars Battlefront will appear on EA Access, although it's not confirmed how far ahead of launch it will happen. If previous releases are anything to go by, then it should be five days before launch, so November 13 2015 seems like a good guess.

You can play as Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Boba Fett and more

One of the main draws for Star Wars fans will be the chance to play as iconic Star Wars characters. So far, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and Boba Fett have been announced, but EA Community Manager Matthew Everett recently teased that more hero characters are coming. These Hero characters won't be rewarded based on skill like killstreak rewards are in Call of Duty, but instead dropped randomly into the battlefield as tokens.

The pre-order bonus ties into The Force Awakens

Normally, pre-order bonuses offer little incentive for you to actually risk your money before the reviews come out – all too often they're just character skins or gold weapons for multiplayer. However, Battlefront's pre-order bonus is genuinely enticing. If you've seen the recent Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer (and who hasn't), then you'll have seen that downed Star Destroyer in the desert.

In Star Wars Battlefront, you get to take part in the battle that results in that destroyed ship. It'll arrive in the form of the Battle for Jakku downloadable content, which will be made available to those who pre-order first on December 1st 2015. It will then be opened to everyone for free a week later, on December 8th 2015.

There will be split-screen multiplayer

Bucking the recent trend for big games ditching split-screen modes (Battlefield 4 didn't feature it, while Halo 5 will be the first in the series without it), Star Wars Battlefront will thankfully offer split-screen. There will be specific co-op missions in the game that you can play with a friend against enemy AI, and in this mode, you can play with up to two players on one console.

You can also play through these missions multiple times by ramping up the difficulty level. There are some downsides though. The main 40-player multiplayer modes won't be playable in split-screen, and it's only available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, not PC.

Online multiplayer is 40-players, not 64

One of the big things Dice is known for on the Battlefield series is 64-player battles. Heck, it pretty much invented the 64-player multiplayer shooter with Battlefield 1942 in the early 2000s, at a time when 8- or 16-player was the norm. Star Wars Battlefront 2, released all the way back in 2005, supported 64 players on PC.

Sadly, 64-player battles isn't a tradition that will be continuing with this Battlefront, which will max out at 40 players. Dice producer Craig Mcleod explains in an interview with PC Gamer: "Instead of putting 64 in there and just saying that for a number, and having it be too crowded and being a lesser experience, we've made it the most optimum number it can be."

You can pilot loads of iconic vehicles

We've already seen A-Wings, AT-AT and AT-ST walkers in the Hoth demo from E3, but there will be a lot more Star Wars ships to pilot in the finished game. In the Endor map, for example, you'll be able to jump on speeders, while the Millennium Falcon has even been touted for some of the 40-player skirmishes. There won't be space battles, but there will be a dedicated airborne-combat mode called Fighter Squadron which will pit TIE Fighters vs X-Wings against each other over the canyons. You'll even be able to pilot the Millennium Falcon.

It definitely will not be delayed

Delays to high-profile games are not uncommon, and they're annoying, even if they do often result in a better game. However, Star Wars Battlefront will not be one of those games, at least according to EA chief operating officer Peter Moore. "We would have no compunction, no hesitation whatsoever, that if something was to go wrong with Star Wars Battlefront – if it wasn't right – we would just push it," he told games industry magazine MCV. "But that's not going to happen." So you can go ahead and book November 20, 2015 off work in confidence.

It's an accessible shooter, rather than a hardcore one

From what we've played so far, Battlefront isn't Call of Duty, at least in terms of rewarding only the best players. For example, there are no iron sights in this game, so you have to shoot from the hip, making the action much more frantic. There's a third-person viewpoint for those who are more used to action-adventure games (although first-person view is much more preferable).

You can't customise your weapons to the nth degree with scopes and camouflage. Becoming a hero character is based on finding a token on the battlefield, rather than racking up 20 kills in a row. All of this means that Battlefront is much more accessible to all players, rather than just those who dedicate their life to it.

There's a "Star Card" perk system

Before you go into battle, you have the chance to pick out three different "Star Cards". These can include things like grenades, shields or a jet pack, the latter of which we found was the most fun of all these "perks" to actually use in the game. On the Hoth level that formed the basis of the E3 demo, the "shield" Star Card was particularly useful, as it would provide cover for both you and your teammates from enemy fire and even AT-AT attacks.