GAMEPLAY

Star Wars Battlefront II is a third and first-person shooter, featuring both single-player and multiplayer game modes. Gameplay is split in two main categories: ground battles and space battles. Both occur across three eras: the Clone Wars, with battles taking place between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems; the Galactic Civil War, where battles between the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire take place; and the war between the Resistance and the First Order. Each faction has its own unique type of soldiers that players control, such as clone troopers and for the Republic, battle droids for the CIS, and stormtroopers for the Empire and the First Order; however, they all control identically. Every faction also has specific starfighters, which, unlike soldiers, actually play differently from one another.

Battles take place across a variety of maps, and every era has its own exclusive maps. At launch, the game featured a total of 15 locations from the Star Wars universe, includingKamino, Kashyyyk, Naboo, Mos Eisley, Yavin IV, Hoth, Cloud City, Endor, the Death Star II, Jakku, Takodana, and Starkiller Base, as well as some space battles exclusive locations, namely Ryloth, Fondor, and the Unknown Regions. Since then, 8 more maps have been added: Crait, Jabba's Palace, Kessel, Geonosis, Felucia, Ajan Kloss, Scarif, and another space only location, D'Qar. Some of the ground locations are exclusive to certain game modes as well.

Classes

Gameplay in Battlefront II is class-based. Every faction has four soldier classes—Assault, Heavy, Officer, and Sniper—and two starfighter classes—Fighter and Interceptor; the Republic, CIS, Rebels, and Empire also have a third starfighter class: the Bomber. The ground battles feature additional "Reinforcement" classes, who cost battle points to be played as, earned from defeating enemies and completing objectives. All factions have three soldier Reinfocrements—the Enforcer, Aerial, and Infiltrator—and two vehicle Reinforcements—the Speeder and Armor; the Republic, CIS, Rebels, and Empire have a third vehicle Reinforcement class—the Artillery—which is featured only in the Galatic Assault mode and on specific maps (e.g. the MTT for the Separatists, available only on Naboo and Kashyyyk).

Sans the Artillery, all classes can be leveled up. After reaching a new level, the player is awarded with a Star Point, which can be used to unlock or upgrade Star Cards that increase certain stats or unlock new abilities for each class; up to three Star Cards can be equipped at the same time. Players can also costumize their soldier classes by purchasing new appearances, or unlocking new weapons and attachments for said weapons via milestones. The weapon costumization is more than purely cosmetic, and blasters have a different damage output, range, fire rate etc. The Reinforcement classes can also be leveled up and costumized, but their weapons and abilities cannot be changed.

Heroes

Aside from the basic and Reinforcement classes, players can take on the role of heroes or villains based on iconic Star Wars character. Unlike in 2015's Battlefront, heroes are an actual class rather than a bonus, and can be leveled up and receive new appearances. In the multiplayer modes, heroes are only available in Galactic Assault and Supremacy, where, much like the Reinforcement classes, they cost battle points to be played as; in the former, players can select any hero from the roster offered by the game, while in the latter, only era-specific heroes are available. Every faction can have a maximum of two heroes on the battlefield at the same time. There are also game modes where heroes are the only playable characters, such as Heroes vs. Villains and Hero Showdown, wherein they don't cost any battle points to be used.

At launch, the hero roster consisted of Luke Skywalker (Matthew Mercer), Leia Organa (Misty Lee), Han Solo (John Armstrong), Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), Yoda (Tom Kane), and Rey (Daisy Ridley), while the villain roster included Darth Vader (Matt Sloan), Emperor Palpatine (Sam Witwer), Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), Bossk (Dee Bradley Baker), Iden Versio (Janina Gavankar), Darth Maul (Sam Witwer), and Kylo Ren (Matthew Wood/Roger Craig Smith). Since then, Finn (John Boyega), Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), Obi-Wan Kenobi (James Arnold Taylor), Anakin Skywalker (Matt Lanter), General Grievous (Matthew Wood), Count Dooku (Corey Burton), BB-8, and BB-9E have also been added. The game also features hero and villain starfighters, namely Boba Fett's Slave I, Darth Maul's Scimitar, Darth Vader's TIE Advanced x1, Han Solo and Chewbacca's Millennium Falcon, Kylo Ren's TIE Silencer, Luke Skywalker's T-65B X-Wing, Poe Dameron's T-70 X-Wing, Rey and Chewbacca's Millennium Falcon, Yoda's Actis-class Light Interceptor, Iden Versio's TIE/in Fighter, Tallie Lintra's RZ-2 A-Wing, and Lando Calrissian and L3-37's Millennium Falcon.

Multiplayer modes

There are a total of twelve online multiplayer game modes, some of which were only for a limited time. The largest mode, Supremacy, supports up to 40 simultaneous players with 24 additional AI-controlled players.

Galactic Assault: This mode pits a team of 20 attackers who attempt to complete an objective, against a 20 defenders who must stop them. A match is split into multiple phases and, if the attackers manage to complete the objective of one phase, the match moves onto the next one. If all objectives are completed, the attackers win; if the defenders manage to hold them off until the timer expires, they will win. At the time of the game's launch, this was the largest game mode.

Supremacy: This mode pits two teams of 20 players, with an additional 12 AI bots per team, against each other as they fight to capture and hold a majority of Command Posts across the map. In the Clone Wars and Resistance/First Order era versions of the mode, once one side has maintained control of the most Command Posts for long enough, the match moves onto the second phase, which has the winning side from phase one attempting to destroy the reactor of the losing side's ship, who are in turn trying to stop them. If the defenders manage to hold off the attackers until the timer expires, the match returns to phase one, but the damage that the attackers dealt to the reactor remains; otherwise, the attackers win the entire match. In the Galactic Civil War era version of the game mode, the second phase is omitted, and whoever wins the first phase wins the entire match. The mode was added in March 2019, initially only for the Clone Wars era, but eventually was made available for both the Resistance/First Order era, in January 2020, and the Galactic Civil War era, in April 2020.

Starfighter Assault: This mode pits a team of 12 attackers against 12 defenders, both teams being reinforced with an additional 20 AI ships. The mode is very similar to Galactic Assault, but battles take place in space and players control starfighters instead of soldiers.

Heroes vs. Villains: This mode pits a team of 4 heroes against 4 villains, and whichever side can get 35 combined eliminations first will win the match. The mode initially used a targeting system, where one member of each team would be randomly selected, and whichever side eliminated the rival target first earned a point; the first team to get 10 points would win the match. This system was removed in favour of a new mode in May 2019.

Hero Showdown: This mode pits a team of 2 heroes against 2 villains in a battle to the death, wherein players will not respawn if defeated until the next round. Whichever team eliminates the other one wins the round, and the winner of the match will be the team that wins three rounds. This mode was added in May 2018.

Hero Starfighters: This mode pits 4 hero starfighters against 4 villain starfighters in a battle to the death. Defeated players respawn as normal starfighters and can play again as a hero ship in the following round after either one team loses all their hero ships or there is a draw. The first team to win three rounds wins. The mode was added in July 2018.

Co-Op Missions: This game mode is a Player vs. Entity mode, pitting a team of 4 players and AI bots against another team of AI bots. One team will be the attackers and have to capture one out of three (sometimes two or only one) Command Posts, while the others are the defenders and try to hold them off until the timer expires. Like Galactic Assault, this mode is split into three phases and, if the attackers get through all of them, they will win, otherwise the defenders win. This mode with an improvement of the game's AI, as enemy bots can be both heroes and reinfrocements. The mode was added in September 2019, initially only for the Clone Wars era, but eventually was made available for both the Resistance/First Order era, in December 2019, and the Galactic Civil War era, in February 2020. It was initially called just "Co-Op" before the name was changed in the April 2020 update.

Strike: This mode pits a team of 8 attackers against 8 defenders in close quarter battle scenarios. There are two possible scenarios for this mode: in the first one, the attackers must escort cargo through several cehckpoints to their final destination; in the second one, the attackers attempt to arm and destroy two different objectives. The defenders win by holding them off until the timer expires.

Blast: This mode is a standard team deathmatch between two teams of 8 players each. The first team to reach 100 total combined eliminations first wins.

Extraction: This mode has a team of 8 attackers escorting cargo through several checkpoints to their final destination while a team of 8 defenders tries to stop them. The mode was added in June 2018; it was later removed and merged with Strike in September 2019.

Ewok Hunt: Inspired by the original Battlefront II's Hunt mode, this game mode pits two Ewoks against a team of 18 stormtroopers. Each defeated stormtrooper respawns as an Ewok. The Ewoks win by eliminating all stormtroopers, while the stromtroopers win by surviving long enough to board a ship that arrives to pick them up after several minutes; it's enough for one stormtrooper to board the ship in order for the entire team to win. This mode was added in April 2018, and was originally on rotation with Jetpack Cargo as a limited time event, but an improved, permanent version was brought back with the October 2019 update.

Jetpack Cargo: This mode pitted two teams of 8 players, all equipped with jetpacks, against each other to capture cargo.It was added in February 2018 as a limited time event, and was on rotation with Ewok Hunt.

Single-player modes

Battlefront II features three single-player game modes that are separate of those from the multiplayer component of the game.

Instant Action: Inspired by the original Battlefront II's Instant Action mode, this is a large scale mode where the player can choose the map and faction they would like to play. To win, the player's team must control the battlefront by securing the most command posts, thereby accruing points. Unlike the similar multiplayer mode ‘Supremacy’, the match ends when a team accrues the maximum number of points. The mode was added in October 2019. In April 2020, the mode was changed to also include "Instant Action Missions", which are similar to the "Co-Op Missions", pitting the player against a team of AI soldiers in either offensive or defensive scenarios.

Custom Arcade: A smaller scale mode where the player can select between four different scneraios: Team Battles, Starfighter Battles, Onslaught, or Starfighter Onslaught. The first two have the player and a team of AI bots pitted against another team of AI bots in a battle to get a certain number of eliminations before the other team. The last two have the player, controlling a hero character or starfighter, taking on a team of AI bots all by themselves, and attempting to get a certain number of eliminations within a time limit that they chose.

Battle Scenarios: A set of classic encounters across all eras of Star Wars, which also grants the player rewards for the multiplayer experience.