DICE

Whatever your opinion of 2015's Star Wars Battlefront, DICE crafted a multiplayer experience that truly made you feel as if you were part of the action. The scope may have been limited, but the battle between the Imperial army and the Rebel forces gave us the impression we were the unseen heroes of the Galactic Civil War. With Star Wars Battlefront II, that feeling once again returns. After going hands-on with Battlefront II's multiplayer at E3 this week, it's clear DICE has crafted a deeper experience that gives actual weight to the battles beyond a kill count.

The Star Wars franchise is no stranger to strong leading women fighting for the Rebel Alliance, but it's a bit more uncommon for the Empire's female allies to get the same recognition. Villains like Asajj Ventress and Doctor Aphra have become fan favorites not just because they're women, but because they show a side of the galactic conflict rarely seen. After seeing a brief portion of the Star Wars Battlefront II single-player campaign in action, it won't be surprising at all to see Commander Iden Versio join those memorable ranks this fall.

Nearly every major bit of media based in the Star Wars universe has focused on the Rebellion's fight against the evil Empire, or its successor, the First Order. This fall, EA studios DICE, Motive and Criterion will show us the other side of the coin in Star Wars Battlefront II. This fall's shooter sequel invites inside the inner ranks of the Empire as it attempts to push back against the Rebellion in the wake of the Battle of Endor.

It was on this day in 2008 that DICE and Electronic Arts released Mirror’s Edge, shaking up the first-person genre with an incredibly fast-paced and breathtaking physics experience.

Once they exhausted World War II as a setting, most military shooters were content to look to the modern era, or even the future, as venues for players to explore warfare. Where it worked for some developers, the Battlefield series just seemed off in this updated age. Both Battlefield 3 and 4 were adequate, but they lacked the punch of earlier entries, and Battlefield Hardline was such a drastic departure from the norm, it became the ultimate outlier in the franchise. After attempts at finding a place in the current climate, DICE has decided instead of forecasting potential futures that looking back at how we got here could be just as exciting. With Battlefield 1, DICE has reinvigorated the franchise with a smart campaign, and invested more into the consistently solid multiplayer with new options that strengthen an already impressive foundation.

Eight years is an eternity in video games, and perhaps that's why it feels like it's been longer than that since the first time we booted up Mirror's Edge. The ambitious first-person parkour experience was one of two games that defined EA's 2008 --- the other being Dead Space --- and while that survival horror franchise went on to spawn two sequels proper (and a rail shooter), a potential follow-up to Mirror's Edge has languished in development forever. It almost seemed like we would never see Faith again, but then DICE surprised the gaming world by announcing a follow-up (technically a remake) for a new generation. Now, Mirror's Edge Catalyst is here with nearly a decade of hype and hope to live up to. While it doesn't quite shatter the mold, Catalyst is a welcome return to a once-forgotten world championed by a dedicated few.

Battlefront is meant to be the Star Wars video game to get as the world awaits the theatrical release of The Force Awakens. While Battlefront doesn't particularly fall under the doomed movie-based video game curse, it certainly feels like one. As a few more months of development could've greatly helped players get more bang for their buck when it comes to this multiplayer frag-fest. Luckily, Star Wars Battlefront is meant to tap into both the success that the first-person shooter genre has gotten over the years with the likes of the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises and the overall boom in hype/merchandising leading into The Force Awakens. Battlefront certainly doesn't reinvent online multiplayer FPS gameplay or even have any lasting reasons to keep you coming back for more, but its presentation and nostalgic values are more than enough to keep casual gamers out there entertained.

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.

We're just a few weeks away from being able to participate in the highly-anticipated open beta for Star Wars Battlefront.

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