EA has gone over the blasters of Star Wars Battlefront in-depth with DICE Weapon Designers Christian Johannesén and Tommy Rydling. They are responsible for creating, balancing, and tweaking all weapon aspects, including damage attributes and unique abilities for each blaster. There are 11 primary blasters that can be divvied up into three groups. There are the standard blaster pistols like the DH-17, which work well from short to medium range. The next group works well from medium to long range, and includes rifles like the E-11 and A280C. Then come the heavy blasters that have more spread than other weapons, like the DLT-19 heavy blaster.
Johannesén and Rydling go on to talk about the four blaster stats you should keep in mind while playing:
- Damage: shows how powerful the blaster is per shot, compared to other weapons
- Rate of fire: shows how many bolts per second the weapon can fire, again relative to all the other blasters
- Cooling power: shows how many bolts you can fire before the blaster overheats
- Range: displays a combination of factors like spread, recoil, andhow much power is lost over distance.
The developers have been tweaking and balancing blasters since the first one was used during playtesting. They cite core values for balancing as the statistics mentioned above. They mention two weapons, the E-11 and A280C (which are also the starting blasters for the Empire and Rebel Alliance, respectively), as the most tweaked, partly because they will be the most used.
Blasters will overheat if fire is sustained for too long. Some blasters can fire longer than others without needing to cool down. Skilled players will know what the overheat limits are for his or her weapon of choice, and can also cool the blaster faster if he or she hits a timed button press when cooling down. Doing so will end the cooldown period and get them back in the action more quickly, somewhat like the active reload feature from Gears of War games.
EA has also released the Battlefront companion app on iOS and Android, and has started the main marketing push behind their fall flagship title. If you are signed up for EA Access, and want to use the app, or simply can’t wait for Star Wars Battlefront to release next Tuesday, November 17, you can download the app now.
