Development
Development for Star Wars Battlefront began at Pandemic Studios in 2002. Greg Burrod, executive producer on Battlefront stated "We wanted to create an online shooter title for the Xbox, PS2, and PC which would allow for team strategy and would feature battles and worlds from every one of the six Star Wars films." Models and animations for the game were created in Softimage XSI, a 3D development studio. Most characters used a common animation set and the minimal number of bones were used due to concerns with hardware limitations at that time. World environments were created with the developer's proprietary editor, ZeroEdit. The terrain-based landscape was formed using the editor's brushes to adjust height, texture application, and color shading. 3D models were then laid on this foundation along with general objective pathing for the artificial intelligence (AI). The AI used two main systems, again to ensure a minimal load on the hardware. A higher, overall objective, such as which command post to head towards, would only be calculated every few seconds per unit. Lower level objectives such as which enemy to fire on or what defensive strategy to take against incoming fire, are calculated continuously.
Some sounds and foley for the game were taken from Star Wars reference material, while others were recorded during a two day visit to Skywalker Ranch, near Nicasio, California. The game has approximately 1,200 foley sounds that are used to convey the impression of such aspects as interaction with flora and fauna, water, and metals. Actor Temuera Morrison voiced the Clone Troopers, reprising his role from the Attack of the Clones film. Tom Kane voiced the character Admiral Ackbar and Yoda. Nick Jameson voiced Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine. Both Kane and Jameson have voiced multiple characters in the Star Wars universe, including reprisal of their respective Yoda and Palpatine roles in the 2008 series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
LucasArts released an Xbox-exclusive playable demo on the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set. The demo included one level, the Battle of Endor. The game released on September 21, 2004, the same day as the Trilogy DVD set. In late 2004, Pandemic Studios released unsupported mod tools for Microsoft Windows, allowing players to create their own maps, as well as edit the weapons and characters for all sides in the game. This release is not supported by Lucasarts. A number of communities now exist solely based around creating maps and characters using these tools, and uploading them for others to download. Aspyr was contracted to port the game to Macintosh systems; it was released in July 2005 for Mac OS. On November 1, 2005, mobile developer Mikoishi and publisher THQ released Star Wars Battlefront Mobile for cellular phones. After eight years the GameSpy matchmaking servers were shut down on November 7, 2012. A GameSpy representative stated the service agreement between LucasArts and GameSpy had been terminated as LucasArts chose to end support on the title.
Read more about this topic: Star Wars: Battlefront
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