EA Explains the Lack of Episode VII Content in Star Wars Battlefront

I’ve spent enough time going on about the kind of mess Star Wars: Battlefront is, and at this point, if you’re reading this website you’ve already figured out what it is. Still, of all the critiques I’ve seen levied towards the game, the one that surprised me most to hear were people calling to have content from the latest Star Wars movie, Episode VII, show up in the game. I mean, I heard the game was good, but I thought it was well-established that Star Wars: Battlefront would cover content in the first three movies exclusively. And yeah, one could probably blame that ‘limitation’ on the reason there’s such little content, but, still--those were the movies everyone knows and loves, right? Why would there be any whining?

Well, whine people did, and now, EA is finally telling us why, exactly, there’s no Star Wars Episode VII content in the game. And here’s a surprising hint: it’s not because they were saving it for DLC!

It’s actually Disney drawing the line in the sand (which we hate, by the way), saying that EA doesn’t have permission to break canon. CFO Blake Jorgensen says:
 

"On Star Wars, the one thing that we are adhering to, and I think this is part of our arrangement with Lucas and Disney, is you can't make a game in Star Wars that violates the canon of Star Wars. Our current Battlefront game is all based on the historical Star Wars canon, which is 30 years before the most recent movie, that will limit our ability to bring some new content into that. But more to come there obviously. We're trying to stay tightly connected to the Star Wars beat for future movies and we'll obviously in future Star Wars games be able to tap the new characters and vehicles and so forth. But in our current game and for that manner the DLC associated with that current game obviously we'll have to be careful that we don't violate the canon."

I’m… actually a little surprised Disney cares so much about lore. I mean, they certainly didn’t care enough when it came to extended canon in the Star Wars books and the like, but, hey, even if they are doing a hard reset, doesn’t mean they can’t force other companies to obey their new version of the universe, right?

So, that kind of sucks for Star Wars fans, I guess, but for me? I actually kind of find it cute. Besides, that means we can get more Rey and Finn action in Star Wars: Battlefront 2, which we all know is going to happen so why not embrace it? At least setting it 30 years ahead will mean it can be substantially different.