I've always been bothered by the fact that the Battle of Endor, one of the most iconic battles in the Star Wars saga, is so under-represented in Battlefront II. The stock ground map for Endor has fantastic visuals, but unfortunately, the gameplay is very disappointing (in my opinion, anyway). The layout feels very linear, and the battle always winds down to the same small area of an otherwise large map. More galling is that the space battle is not represented at all. Even if players in Galactic Conquest do manage to get a space battle over the planet, if feels nothing like the battle from Return of the Jedi. With Battlefront Chronicles, I'm hoping to do the Battle of Endor justice. Out of all the battle sequences from all the movies, the Battle of Endor has been my favorite ever since I was a little kid.
I'll start off with the ground map. This map is essentially a rearrangement of the stock map. Like I said, I love the visuals of the stock map, but just really wanted to improve the layout. My take on the map keeps the same overall size, but arranges the command posts in more of a diamond shape, with lots of paths twisting through the trees. This gives the AI more of a chance to spread out around the map, making the battle much more chaotic (just like it is in the film). Players can never quite know where they will encounter enemy units. Even if players choose to stray from the beaten paths, they will never be far from the action. The map also features an extended Ewok village. The village platforms still can't play too much of a role in typical gameplay because of AI planning issues (Battlefront's AI can't think in three dimensions - i.e., bots don't like it when paths cross over each other), but they do add to the depth of the map and provide a fun place for human players to explore.
Next up is the big feature: the space map. To be honest, I'm surprised that there have not been more attempts at a space map for Endor. In fact, to my knowledge, only one map based on this setting has been released (Maveritchell's excellent Space Endor map, available in the Conversion Pack 2.0). This mod just wouldn't be complete without a Space Endor map of its own. With that in mind, I've put together a map set at the point when the Rebel fleet decides to attack the Imperial fleet head-on. Thus, each side has multiple capital ships, all jumbled up amongst each other. This makes for an action-packed and exciting map. The requisite fighters for each side are all present: TIE Fighters, Interceptors, and Bombers for the Empire, and A-wings, B-wings, X-wings, and Y-wings for the Alliance. And who knows, maybe there will be some special surprises waiting in the hangars!
Hope you like what you see!
let me guess you plan on putting the falcon in on of the rebel hangers....
Would it be possible to have a scripted sequence for inside the deathstar? I imagine it would be a challenge map.
Could we get some controllable heavy turrets or some sort of capital to capital ship combat?