As far as Star Wars Battlefront is concerned, all must remain in the past. EA is bound by the canon and they can’t violate this, placing obvious restrictions on what they can do with story and game design elements. This means, despite the popular of the new heroes from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there will be no plans to add Rey or Finn to future Battlefront expansion packs. It’s not that EA is against the new heroes. In fact, there’s a pretty obvious and logical reason for it.
“Battlefront” is based on the science-fiction franchise’s original trilogy released between 1977 and 1983. “The Force Awakens” is set about 30 years after “Return of the Jedi.”
It may sound obvious to some fans but then again, in a video game reality, we often like to think that we can change things as we choose and have fun with it. That’s true… to a certain extent. Star Wars fans take their stories and their canon seriously (duh, if you’re reading our site, you know this already) and that means EA has to follow the storyline with their game story as well.
“You can’t make a game in ’Star Wars’ that violates the canon of ‘Star Wars,’ ” EA finance chief Blake Jorgensen said. “Meaning, you can’t take something from the future and bring it back into the past unless it’s a reference.”
This didn’t stop EA from selling millions of copies of Battelfront and it likely won’t stop many from continuing to purchase the game and expansion packs. Fans of the movie might flock to the game as well, just because the films kick up that Star Wars nostalgia and excitement.
If Battlefront could break canon, what would you want to see?
