As the launch of Star Wars Battlefront closes in, EA details another of its modes: Drop Zone...
News"Keep watching the skies," seems to be the key bit of advice in Drop Zone, the latest Star Wars Battlefront mode unveiled by EA.
Eight-versus-eight teams of Rebels and Empire forces fight to capture and control diving bell-like pods, which will randomly drop from the sky and land on the planet surface. Once claimed, these pods will unleash a few useful Power Pickups, thus giving players an added incentive to locate and gain possession of them. The risk, however, is that hanging around one pod for too long will trigger an orbital strike, with deadly results.
It's all part of EA's plans to create a game where players are constantly moving and fighting. Even a tussle over the possession of one pod won't result in a tedious stalemate, but rather the deployment of another pod somewhere else, which should encourage players to rush off and stake a claim for that one instead. Games end once five pods have been claimed by one team, or ten minutes have lapsed, so Drop Zone sounds like the perfect mode for bite-sized bursts of competitive play.
"This goes hand in hand with our design philosophy behind many of the game modes in Star Wars Battlefront," says the game's lead level designer Dennis Brännvall. "We’re promoting the idea of a fast, action-packed game where you need to be mobile and think on your feet. Camping doesn't really pay off."
EA's announcement tells us that Drop Zone will take place on Hoth, Tatooine, Sullust, and Endor, and the post also appears to describe some map locations that we haven't, unless we're much mistaken, seen in footage so far.
"Playing Drop Zone on the Swamp Crash Site on Endor is a personal favorite. The map has a couple of nice choke points but is overall very free-flowing and hectic, as enemies can attack from anywhere on that level," Brännvall said. "The fight takes place around a crashed GR-75 transport ship with containers from the craft strewn across the landscape, and there’s one section with a waterfall overlooked by an Ewok village, where you have to jump down into the pool below in order to claim the pod, hoping no one’s hiding in the trees above waiting to pick you off."
Drop Zone is the latest of the Battlefrontmodes revealed so far. There's also the recently-unveiled Fighter Squadron, the 40-player opus, Supremacy, Walker Assault, and the 10-v-10 deathmatch mode, Blast.
Star Wars Battlefront is out on the Nov. 17 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
