Video Game / Star Wars Battlefront (2015)

Star Wars Battlefront^note note the lack of a colon to distinguish it from Star Wars: Battlefront (2004) is an action first- and third-person shooter video game based on the Star Wars franchise. The third major release in the Star Wars: Battlefront series, it was developed by EA DICE and published by Electronic Arts. Despite this, it's not considered a sequel to the previous games, but rather a reboot. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in November 2015.

The game takes its maps and characters from the Original Trilogy, though various elements from the Expanded Universe and Prequel Trilogy can be found with a keen eye. Game modes include straight-up Team Deathmatch, a battle against Imperial AT-AT's, and matches revolving around teams of Rebel and Imperial movie characters battling it out. Though the game sticks to the era of the Original Trilogy, it does not stick to any sort of canon, instead giving players a sandbox with Original Trilogy elements and only vaguely referencing the events of the films. This means that Greedo can interact with the player despite Han already being a member of the Rebellion, and Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine being playable on maps set after Return of the Jedi.

The first DLC was released alongside the game, the Battle of Jakku, which is the setting for a pivotal battle set after Return of the Jedi and leading into The Force Awakens. The second DLC, released in March 2016, is set in the Outer Rim in locations such as Jabba the Hutt's palace. The third DLC, released in June 2016, takes place in Bespin, the location of Cloud City. The fourth DLC, released September 2016, is focused in and around the Death Star, and the fifth and final DLC is a tie-in to Rogue One.

A sequel, Star Wars Battlefront II, was released in late 2017.

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Tropes

• Action Girl:
  • This game allow players to customize most of their characters' features, including their gender. This means that you will see female soldiers on both the Rebel side and the Imperial side.
  • Further evidenced by the female A-Wing pilot in the Fighter Squadron trailer, who takes out a TIE Fighter she's been chasing. However, she nearly gets shot down by a TIE Interceptor and is only saved by the timely rescue of the Millennium Falcon.
  • Princess Leia herself is a playable Hero, alongside Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Darth Vader, and other famous characters.
  • Jyn Erso is the playable Hero character for the Rogue One DLC.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Greedo, who's best known for being an overconfident punk that Han dispatched with ease, is capable of tanking hundreds of laser blasts and retaliate with explosives controlled by his self-confidence. In the hands of a skilled player, he can even rack up quite an impressive body count.
  • The Red Five, Luke's ship from A New Hope, comes with firepower, speed and armor far exceeding that of a normal X-Wing along with the ability to significantly repair itself mid-flight and an invulnerable (if temporary) shield. In the films, the Red Five was completely ordinary, it was Luke's piloting that accomplished so much.
• Airstrike Impossible: The final assault on the Death Star is reenacted in "Battle Station," where the Rebels can only win if one of three randomly assigned players can pass a series of ten checkpoints throughout the Death Star trench that ends in front of the ship's exhaust port, where they must make the final shot to destroy the space station. All this goes on while the enemy team is fully aware of who's been assigned to make the run and equipped with just as much firepower as your entire team.
• Anachronism Stew: The game doesn't follow any sort of narrative whatsoever, so there is no attempt to stay to any sort of continuity. It's just the characters, vehicles, and locations from the Original Trilogy thrown together.
• Anti-Air: Sorosuub Centroplex and Cloud City on multiplayer, as well as the Sullust map in Survival mode, have turbolasers, which players can operate to try to shoot down spacecraft, which they can do so with only two hits.
• Anti-Armor: Ion weapons, such as the Ion Shot or the Ion Grenade, are more effective than regular weapons against droids, turrets, vehicles and Deflector Shields. As a trade-off, however, they're less effective against infantry.
• Armor-Piercing Attack:
  • The Cycler Rifle and the Scatter Gun fire kinetic bullets, allowing them to bypass the Personal Shield and any Deflector Shields in general. Melee ignores shields as well, and so does the Stinger Pistol.
  • Director Krennic's Armor Breaker ability allows him to fire off a single shot that does a high amount of damage while ignoring the defense boosts characters gain from Armor levels.
  • The Sonic Imploder releases a sound wave that knocks anyone hit by it down an Armor level, making them more vulnerable to enemy attack.
• Attack Reflector: While blocking, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader can send blaster fire back at any enemy they place their crosshairs on.
• Back Stab: Melee deals double damage if it hits the target in the back, which under normal conditions will result in a One-Hit Kill against a regular enemy since melee's base damage is 50.
• Balance Buff: A few weeks after he was launched with the Bespin DLC, Lando Calrissian saw an increase in accuracy, damage output and his critical hit multipliers, alongside a homing feature for his Power Shot and a instant kill to anyone stuck in his Shock Trap for too long.
• Bayonet Ya: The CJ-9 Bo-Rifle replaces your regular melee attack with a thrust of the blaster's electrified staff, which is located right below the barrel, making it functionally equivalent to a bayonet. This will result in a One-Hit Kill against any player it hits, provided they aren't currently playing a hero or a vehicle.
• Big Damn Heroes: At the end of the single-player Survival mission on Sullust, you're rescued by none other than Han Solo himself.
• The Big Guy: Chewbacca is the "tank" character for the Rebellion, being the most powerful thanks to his Bowcaster, wide-reaching ground stomp, and roar that increases his teammates' traits. He's also the slowest character in the entire game thanks to his size.
• Bilingual Dialogue: The Sullustans, the Rodians, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 all speak their own respective languages, but that doesn't stop Mission Control from informing you on enemy whereabouts in English. Most players don't complain, except for those few fluent in Wookiee.
• Boring, but Practical: Luke's Force push and Vader's Force choke aren't as flashy as their lightsaber moves, but they have quick recharge times and can reliably one-shot any ordinary soldier.
• Bottomless Magazines:
  • Your weapons will overheat if fired too much, but there's no limit on magazine capacity. Grenades and other secondary gear recharge over time rather than needing to be reloaded or using ammunition.
  • The DT-29 pistol is the only weapon with actual ammunition and needs to be reloaded after six shots. Even then, the player never runs out of ammo to reload it with. The trope can be invoked more conventionally by activating Cooling Cell, which makes it so the DT-29 doesn't need to reload while its effect lasts.
• Bottomless Pits: While somewhat rare, players who fall of cliffs or into pits will be instantly killed and respawned. Since no one killed the player, the game doesn't show who killed the player and instead displays the text "You got lost far far away!"
• The Brute: Dengar is the "tank" class character on the Imperial side, able to withstand the most damage thanks to his trait and having the most aggressive abilities (essentially an infinite amount of Gatling gunfire, a swift, far-ranging Hurricane Strike, and a grenade dash that will eat through Heroes' health).
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: While the game itself does not have microtransactions within the game (yet...), upgrade packs for star cards and trait unlocks are available for purchase from the Xbox Store for $5 US each, or the entire upgrade set for $20 US.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • This game brought back the Shadow Troopers (Stormtroopers dressed in black versions of their armour, most notably seen in The Force Unleashed.)
  • On one of the Endor stages, there appears to be a creature that look like a Temptor from Caravan of Courage (though whether it actually is a Temptor has yet to be confirmed).
  • In fact, there seem to be a lot of seldom-seen creatures from Legends. On Tatooine there are Trooshti, Profogg, Rock Beetles, rock warts and (using binoculars) Bonegnawers. The Endor map shows Humming Peepers, Geejaw, and Lantern birds.
  • The Death Star DLC comes with weapons some may recognize from the Dark Forces games - namely, the K-16 Bryar pistol (Kyle Katarn's perennial companion across the series) and the TL-50 heavy repeater (the Imperial Heavy Repeater introduced in Jedi Knight II). The Outer Rim DLC, meanwhile, adds in the "Scatter Gun", which is for all intents and purposes the ACP Array Gun from Star Wars: Republic Commando.
• The Caper: The Rogue One based "Infiltration" mode centers around the Rebels attempting to sneak a small ship onto an occupied enemy planet so a team of soldiers can steal data from the Empire.
• Character Class System: Averted for the first time in the series. "Hands" and "Star Cards" allow you to customize your character's gear, rather than using the preconstructed templates of the original duology.
• Character Customization: Downplayed. You can customize your Rebel character's species, and their head/face if they're human. You can customize your Empire character's armor, and head/face if they're a standard stormtrooper.
• Close-Range Combatant:
  • Luke Skywalker's main weapon is not a long range blaster, but a lightsaber, so he has to rush for his enemies to get kills. At range he mainly has to rely on his Force push, which only goes a few feet in front of him, and his ability to deflect shots right back at their originator.
  • Downplayed with Darth Vader, who has more ranged options with his Force choke and lightsaber throw, albeit the former's range is still very short. He can also block for longer than Luke, allowing him to rely more on deflecting shots.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Emperor Palpatine's "Force Dash" is the same "psycho crusher"-style corkscrew jump he performed at the beginning of his duel with Mace Windu in Revenge of the Sith.
  • The Jabba's Palace map contains the corpse of the Rancor and empty carbonite from Return of the Jedi, establishing that the games on that map are set after the events of the film.
  • Han can be heard asking Vader if he's tortured any princesses lately whenever the two meet in battle.
  • Luke is aware of Vader being his father.
  • One of the last additions to the game was the Lasat bo-rifle, presumably a version of it entering mass-production after Agent Kallus won his.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Characters can jump over lava streams without harm on Sullust. But at least they lose health if they step into the lava.
• Critical Hit Class: Lando's ability "Fortune Trigger" sees his ability to land a critical hit go up alongside his killcount, fitting with his canon reputation as a gambler and scoundrel.
• Crosshair Aware: Greedo's lock-on ability has a reticle appear on all enemies in range and ends with Greedo firing his shot at any that don't find cover.
• Damage Over Time: The Stinger Pistol, a subweapon that causes any infantry it hits to sustain passive damage that adds up to about 50 health.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: AT-ATs from the Walker Assault mode can only move in a straight line with very little room to aim, but they benefit from their gigantic health bars that can only be reduced by continuous fire from the entire opposing team over the course of several minutes. The AT-ATs' ability to sponge damage is even greater thanks to their shields, which completely protect them from damage so long as a Y-Wing hasn't bombed the shields in the last twenty seconds.
• Defeat Means Playable: This is how you unlock the CJ-9 Bo-Rifle; you must defeat another player who has it equipped. When the weapon was added to the game, the developers joined matches with it equipped to kick off the chain of unlocking.
• Derelict Graveyard: The maps from the "Battle of Jakku" DLC are littered with crashed spaceships and vehicles that are still burning from the raging battle. This is especially true with the Graveyard of Giants, a giant map featuring several crashed Star Destroyers and AT-ATs.
• Difficult, but Awesome: It's actually possible to bring down an AT-AT walker in Walker Assault when it's vulnerable using the Snowspeeder by tying its legs with the cable. Though it involves avoiding the AT-AT's fire, its legs, and enemy fighter support, it can bring it down in one go.
• Ditto Aliens: All the alien skins resemble notable members of that species, with all the Rodians looking just like Greedo and all the Sullustans having the same face as Nien Nunb. Meanwhile, all those human skins look suspiciously diverse.
• Elite Mooks:
  • "Honor Guard" or "Royal Guard" serve as this for the Rebels or the Empire, respectively. These units have increased health and spawn with rocket launchers normally reserved for on-site pick-ups, with the only cost being that they can only spawn when Leia or the Emperor in play, and even then only two can spawn at a time.
  • Survival Mode has a number of special Stormtrooper enemy types that show up as the game progresses. Besides the typical sniper and rocket launcher troops, there are also heavy shocktroopers with heavier armor and light machinegun blasters, jetpack troopers with personal energy shields, and shadow troopers with enhanced armor and cloaking devices.
• Escort Mission:
  • The Battle Station mode's second stage forces the Rebels to guide R2-D2 through a section of the Death Star into a transport off the station. R2-D2 is actually playable and can be taken control of by any rebel who activates him first, but if the Empire does enough damage to the droid, he'll deactivate and the player will respawn as a soldier again. This doubles as a Timed Mission, since the Empire can't permanently kill R2 and will only win if the Rebels take too long.
  • The Rogue One-based Infiltration mode begins with a space battle where the Rebels must defend three "U-Wings" as they push through the Imperial blockade towards the planet Scarif. If the three U-Wings are killed, another three spawn back at the starting point until time runs out. If the Rebels get at least one U-Wing past the fleet towards Scarif, the second phase of Infiltration begins.
• Eternal Engine: The Sorosuub Refinery and the Sorosuub Pipeline are a giant industrial factory and a sprawling oil mining facility, respectively, where Rebels and Imperials duke it out in the smaller game modes like Droid Run and Heroes VS. Villains.
• Fantastic Racism: The Empire's distaste for non-human species is evident in their warnings about Nien Nunb and Chewbacca, contrasting with the egalitarian Rebels. They also remark on hiring the Rodian Greedo and the Trandoshan Bossk with disdain, especially when they mention "we have hired the alien Greedo/Bossk".
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The main trios invoke this.
  • Fighter: Luke and Vader are the most physical - wielding close-range weapons, and relying on their Force Jumps to maneuver.
  • Mage: Leia and Palpatine/Sidious specialize in support - giving buffs, spawning Elite Mooks, etc.
  • Thief: Han and Boba are hit-and-run marksmen, and both are explicitly criminals In-Universe.
• Fragile Speedster:
  • Luke Skywalker takes hits less reliably than Vader and can't block for as long, but he has the highest running speed of the Heroes, a very maneuverable jump and a dash attack that can send him flying through enemy hordes.
  • Bossk is even faster than Luke, which can be even further enhanced when using his X-Ray vision ability. This comes at the cost of rather lackluster defense, but since his trait lets him heal for every enemy he kills, he can compensate for it.
• Friendly Fireproof: The player can accidentally kill themselves with certain explosives, but teammates can be hit with massive thermal implosions and littered with laser fire without causing any harm.
• Glass Cannon: Jyn Erso has next to no health and dies faster than most heroes. She compensates for this by having the strongest and most spammable short-range attack in the form of her Truncheon Surge and an accurate, powerful laser rifle.
• Grenade Spam: Players can't spam grenades since most varieties are relatively rare pick-ups or equipment with cool-down time, but an exception is made for the Hero Bossk. One of Bossk's abilities allows him to make his Targeting Rifle fire an unlimited amount of grenades for several seconds. Despite having to lug around all these waves of grenades, Bossk has no problem maintaining the highest running speed in the game.
• Healing Shiv: The Bacta Bomb from the Outer Rim DLC may look and act like a standard grenade, but it releases the healing fluid Bacta, which is used by health recovery droids. It's meant to be thrown at the feet of the user and allies to restore heath and give a defense boost that prevents a One-Hit Kill from everything barring a lightsaber.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: When customising characters, you basically replace the heads. This is especially jarring with the Stormtroopers, whose alternate heads are all unmasked (save for the Scout Trooper and Shadow Trooper). However, the September patch limited the ability to remove helmets.
• Hero Shooter: Downplayed. The game does offer sixteen different Hero/Villain characters to play (eight on-disc, eight downloadable), but only a few players at a time control them. The vast majority of players control the Mooks of the Rebel and Imperial armies, only distinguishable by what gear they have equipped. However, heroes are vital components of game modes like Hero Hunt, Heroes VS Villains, and Sabotage. They include:
  • Heroes: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa and Han's Millennium Falcon from launch; Nien Nunb, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, Luke's Red Five, R2-D2, and Jyn Erso as downloadable content.
  • Villains: Darth Vader, Boba Fett, the Emperor and Boba's Slave I from launch; Greedo, Dengar, Bossk, Vader's TIE Advanced and Director Krennic as downloadable content.
• Hold the Line: The single-player Survival missions are framed this way; a stealth mission is compromised when the Empire is alerted to your presence, and you must fend off several waves of enemies until The Cavalry arrives to extract you. The exceptions are the Rebel Depot and Ice Caves map, which don't have any plot at all.
• Homing Projectile:
  • The Ion Torpedo is used by locking on to a vehicle for a couple seconds, after which it will fire off and home into the target, bypassing any cover in the process.
  • All ships, from the standard Rebel X-Wing to Boba Fett's Slave I, come equipped with homing proton torpedoes that can be fired after locking onto an enemy ship for a few seconds.
  • Lando Calrissian's Power Blast can home onto enemy Stormtroopers from significant distance, which matches with his X-8 Night Sniper blaster quite nicely.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
  • Exactly as seen in the movies, if this clip is anything to go on.
  • Seeing as players control the stormtroopers, whether this is invoked or inverted is pretty much up to your level of skill.
  • As it turns out, blaster fire for virtually all weapons have a degree of randomness (a design choice to duplicate how blaster fire went all over the place in the movies). This means that even if you have a clear shot at an enemy, there's a good chance the shot will go awry. Obi-Wan was right after all.
• Interactive Start Up: A subversion of the trope is present while the game is installed or updated, providing full access to a single solo game scenario of Darth Vader vs Hoth Base Rebels while waiting for the game to fully install/update.
• Interface Screw: The flash grenade. It produces a droning noise that briefly drowns out any other sounds, while the flash itself freezes your screen for a split-second, after which your vision gets hazy before finally returning to normal.
• Invisible Means Undodgeable: Averted, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader's telekinetic Force powers have set ranges, can easily miss and won't affect soldiers through windows or holes.
• Jet Pack: Boba Fett is equipped with a jet pack like he always is, using it to provide temporary Flight for so long as he has fuel.
• Jump Jet Pack: The aptly titled "Jump Pack" sends the user flying up and forward through the air in a way that provides more mobility and than any other Star Card in the game. It's practically a necessity to keep up with a game on any outdoors map and even indoors it can let players fly over the enemies' heads and flank them.
• Lightning Bruiser: So long as you aren't comparing him to Vader, Luke Skywalker is this. His above-average on the ground speed is only added by his mobile jump and his far-reaching dash attack, which makes him a terror considering his lightsaber is almost always a One-Hit Kill on normal players, even if they try to abuse the invincibility of the Bacta Bomb. He also has great health like all Heroes and can even deflect shots back at enemies with his lightsaber, although not as effectively as Darth Vader.
• Long-Range Fighter: Boba Fett's gun has incredible accuracy and he can find nearly any target by flying over the map, but he has no melee attack at all. His flamethrower is meant to compensate for this, but once it runs out of fuel, Boba's defenseless up close.
• Made of Iron: All the Heroes, even if their health varies, can take absurd amounts of punishment ranging from flurries of lightsaber swings to direct fire from AT-ATs. The only Heroes with excuses are Chewbacca, who's a Wookiee (a naturally tough species), Darth Vader, who's more machine than man, and Luke Skywalker to an extent, due to being a Jedi. Everyone else is physically a normal member of their species, so they should die as easily as human, Rodian, or Sullustan foot soldiers do.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • Darth Vader is a slow bruiser, especially compared with his heroic counterpart, Luke Skywalker. Whereas Luke is valued for his agility and speed, Vader sees play for his heavier melee attacks and instant kill Abilities, the Lightsaber Throw and Force Choke.
  • Chewbacca has the lowest speed of any hero, a flaw which even extends to his lasers. He compensates for it by being able to use to send massive shockwaves with his bare hands and fire explosive laser bolts in volleys of six.
• Mission Control:
  • Both the Rebels and the Imperials get intel on how the status of the objective, the whereabouts of nearby Heroes and general advise through occasional communications with administrators. Both sides get intel from a variety of generic officers, but notably, Admiral Ackbar serves as part of mission control for the Rebels.
  • Ackbar also serves as mission control for the single-player Survival Mode, informing you of the enemies you will be facing each wave and sending a drop pod every three waves, which you can secure for power-ups.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: The CJ-9 Bo-Rifle, which is a hybrid of a blaster and an electrostaff. When equipped, the player's regular melee attack is replaced by a thrusting attack that uses the end of the staff as a bayonet.
• Mythology Gag
  • After a small skirmish in the gameplay launch trailer, Boba Fett almost flies into a sarlacc pit, but stops himself in time and remarks that he won't be devoured a second time.
  • In the intro to the Sullust training mission, a background stormtrooper can be seen hitting his head, which is a reference to a blooper from A New Hope where a stormtrooper bonks his head on a door.
• Nerf:
  • DICE re-balances the game periodically through updates and patches. Most noticeably, Boba Fett saw a drastic decrease in usage and effectiveness after an update increased the rate at which his shots lost power over distance and removed the homing feature on his wrist rocket, which also now causes a smaller explosion than before.
  • In January 2016, the Bowcaster weapon had its damage output drastically reduced after becoming incredibly common alongside the Jump Pack and the Bounty Hunter trait, which allowed the powerful bowcaster to be spammed with no cool-down while hopping across the map like a madman so long as one of the Bowcaster's five shots killed someone.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: When a hero is defeated, rather than dying, they're shown surrendering to the enemy.
• No Plot? No Problem!: Unlike the other Survival maps, in which you're spotted during a stealth mission and must Hold the Line while waiting for The Cavalry, the Ice Caves and Rebel Depot maps have no plot whatsoever. You're simply shown a cutscene of the layout, fight off the Empire, and then throw a victory celebration.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Originally, Hero Hunt had whoever finished off the current hero become the next hero, which led to players deliberately trying to camp or kill steal and optimizing their loadouts around increasing their likelihood of landing that final shot. The developers took notice and updated the game mode so that instead, the role of hero is next given to whoever does the most damage to the current one.
• Old-School Dogfight: As one would expect from a Star Wars game, Battlefront allows players to engage in large scale dogfights in the depths of space. This is normally reserved to the Fighter Squadron game mode, but aerial vehicles can also be unlocked via power-up in land-based game modes like Walker Assault.
• Orbital Bombardment: Known as an "Orbital Strike," this is a powerful power-up available to be picked up by soldiers on the field. Orbital Strikes can also be called down at will by an AT-AT if the player takes control of it in Walker Assault. Nien Nunb, a Rebel Hero, can also summon these as one of his default abilities; however, he can't do this in smaller game modes, instead receiving the less over-powered Proximity Mines.
• Overheating:
  • Every gun in the game (except the DT-29, which replaces this mechanic with ammunition) overheats after overuse, though depending on the gun this can vary from a single powerful shot to two dozen in succession. Additionally, the Disruptor Star Card releases a burst of heat which causes any nearby guns to jam for a time. This also doubles as an ability for Lando and R2-D2.
  • Can be defied with the Cooling Cell card, which temporarily renders your weapon unable to overheat no matter how much you fire (or in the case of the DT-29, lets it fire indefinitely without reloading).
• Palette Swap: The first DLC heroes are Nien Nunb and Greedo, who are basically the vanilla models of the Sullustan and Rodian you can already choose in the game with light adjustments.
• Palmtree Panic: The Rogue One DLC introduces maps for the planet Scarif, the location of a tropical Imperial base littered with shallow water and plenty of palm trees for soldiers to hide in.
• Pistol-Whipping:
  • Rather than having a dedicated melee weapon, your melee attack has you swing your blaster at the enemy. The exceptions are Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, who fight with their lightsabers; Han Solo, who can tackle enemies with his Shoulder Charge;^note  He can still use regular melee as well, however. Jyn Erso, who can attack with her truncheons; Boba Fett, who has no melee attacks whatsoever; and any player using the CJ-9 Bo-Rifle, which will instead use the weapon's staff as a bayonet.
  • In addition to regular melee, one of Dengar's special moves, Hurricane Strike, has him swing his blaster around to perform a Spin Attack.
• Power Creep: The Heroes added in DLC had Traits, which improved their statistics as they killed enemies, while the six Heroes that came with the game itself were just left with static statistics. This changed in December 2016, when the original six (Luke, Han, Leia, Vader, Boba Fett, the Emperor) were given new traits in order to compete with the eight DLC heroes.
• Power-Up: Collecting items in the field gives you temporary access to new gear. These include shield generators, the ability to drop an orbital bombardment, and being able to pilot a vehicle or control a hero.
• Psychoactive Powers: Greedo's signature trait connects his confidence to what type of grenade he throws. The longer he stays in battle, the more his confidence grows, and the more deadly Greedo becomes, going from a gas grenade to the massive Thermal Imploder.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: The DT-29, the only weapon that reloads instead of overheating, is this game's version of a revolver, holding 6 ammo at a time that are displayed on screen in a circle that rotates every time you fire a shot. And sure enough, it is one of the game's stronger weapons, balancing out its limited ammo capacity with high damage and rate of fire.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Princess Leia and Emperor Palpatine are playable Heroes, engaging with troops in massive infantry assaults.
• Scenery Gorn: Along with detailed explosions, fighters crashing or being shot down, AT-ATs being destroyed, and more.
• Scenery Porn: Endor and Hoth look stunning in the trailer. Smoke clouds, distant space battles and all sorts of other environmental effects add detail to the in-game maps.
• Scope Perspective: The game can be played either in first-person or third person, but even when in the third-person mode, focusing your aim while holding the Pulse Cannon or the Smart Rocket will force the player into the first-person mode. This happens even when you use the Pulse Cannon as Nien Nunb, who normally can only be played in third-person.
• Shifting Sand Land: Many levels take place on the desert planets of Tatooine from A New Hope and Return of the Jedi and the planet of Jakku from The Force Awakens.
• Short-Range Shotgun: The CA-87 shock blaster, which fires an invisible shock wave that's actually made up of a spread of invisible pellets. It's completely useless against anything more than a couple steps away, but does obscene damage to anything within range. Can be defied by activating Focus Fire, which changes the weapon's behavior altogether, condensing its pellets into a single blaster bolt that allows it to remain dangerous at longer distances.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • The default weapons for the Rebels and the Empire respectively, the A280C and the E-11, both of which are among the franchise's most iconic weapons. They're designed as well-rounded weapons that do well in general but aren't the best at anything. However, they're among the easiest weapons to control, and between this and their lack of any major disadvantages, they can get even a relatively unskilled player very far if they haven't yet unlocked more specialized weapons.
  • In smaller game modes such as Cargo, the Scout Pistol, a subweapon that quickly fires two short-range bolts that can take out an enemy from full health if they both connect. It seems like a very plain and situational weapon at first, but it has several positives: first, it's the earliest subweapon you unlock, so for a while it will be all you have; second, it has the shortest cooldown of all subweapons, so you'll have access to it very frequently. Lastly, maps on smaller game modes are generally focused towards close quarters, which is exactly what the Scout Pistol is designed for. This simple, tiny sidearm can prove to be a valuable part of your arsenal in those small matches.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Hoth is a planet covered in ice and is the subject of several maps, variably set deep within the planet's icy catacombs, across the planet's plains during the day, or during an intense twilight battle in Hoth's hills.
• Slow Laser: Lasers here are visibly luminous and far slower than light. Specifically, the laser bolts from Chewbacca's bowcaster are so slow that an enemy at distance can step aside and dodge one as it heads for them.
• Smoke Out: One of R2-D2's abilities in the Battle Station mode allows him to cover himself in smoke that allows him to evade incoming Stormtroopers.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: As soon as a match in a large game mode enters its final minute, whatever music is playing will switch to "Tension Loop," a frantic piece which incorporates music from John Williams's original score.
• Static Stun Gun:
  • The Shock Trap immobilizes any enemy within range for five seconds, after which they will die if they don't break out.
  • Both R2-D2 and Lando Calrissian have this as one of their abilities, though Lando's variant is not only more powerful but also disguises itself as a power-up and R2's is a more literal gun.
• Stealth Expert: Players with the "Scout" trait show up less and less on enemy scanners (i.e. the mini-map) as they get points and level up the trait. At the highest level, players with the "Scout" trait will disrupt scanners every time they kill an enemy and never show up on the scanners even while sprinting and firing a weapon.
• Stone Wall:
  • Among the first Heroes, Leia and Palpatine serve as this. They have high health, the ability to block incoming fire and (in some modes) healing pick-ups, but their defensive abilities leave them with a rather one-dimensional offensive moveset.
  • Director Krennic can only fire six shots at a time and has only one offensive ability, but his ability to boost the defense of nearby allies and boost his own defense when in a crowd make him an excellent supportive option.
• Stopped Numbering Sequels: Which makes sense, given the Sequel Gap (a full ten years) and the whole Legends edict basically making the first two games non-canon.
• Stylistic Suck: The AT-STs have deliberately jerky motions when walking, mimicking their old appearances as stop-motion models.
• Theme Music Power-Up: When taking control of a hero, a brief musical theme plays when they appear, such as the Star Wars theme for Luke, or the Imperial March theme for Darth Vader.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Rebel commanders will often sound distressed when announcing the arrival of a Villain to the battlefield, particularly Vader.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: One of Darth Vader's special abilities has him throw his lightsaber like a boomerang at his target and summon it back with the Force. The move is incredibly accurate and can reliably one-shot most Rebel soldiers.
• To Serve Man: Bossk makes numerous remarks indicating he'd love to eat some of the rebels he goes up against, especially Chewie.
• Trap Master: Nien Nunb, the Rebel Hero from the Outer Rim DLC, makes up for mediocre firing power and health with an arsenal including a reusable Pulse Canon, an assortment of upgradable turrets and depending on the game mode either an endless array of Proximity Mines or the ability to call down Orbital Strikes on any position. His great running speed allows him to place his weapons where he sees fit with great efficiency.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: During the the second part of the Battle Station game mode, the player controlling R2-D2 can go back into the Rebel team's spawn and move into a small indent in the floor. Since R2-D2 moves by sliding along the ground, he has no way to get out of the small hole and he's stuck in there until the Imperial team kills him, which they have no motivation to do since there goal is to stop R2-D2 from getting to the opposite end of the map. It's a contrived situation, but it's not uncommon for Griefers to pull it off.
• Vocal Evolution: Although Matt Sloan reprises Darth Vader, his voice is lighter and has more of an echo to it compared to his deep voice in The Force Unleashed reminiscent of James Earl Jones.
• Weak to Fire: Chewbacca takes a lot of damage from Boba Fett's flamethrower because of his flammable fur coat.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Heroes VS. Villains pits a team three Hero characters and three foot soldiers against an equivalent villainous team. It doesn't matter how well the soldiers play: if their Heroes die, the round ends and the enemy team gets a point.
• Zerg Rush: This is possibly the defining strategy in Hero Hunt, which pits twelve footsoldiers against one Hero. The Hero may have extra health, three ridiculous ability and incredible offensive power, but with twelve rapid-fire guns shooting hundreds of lasers at once along with the occasional Orbital Bombardment and Grenade Spam, the Hero will have to struggle to survive.

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