Star Wars Battlefront Will Have Dedicated Servers

Star Wars: Battlefront [official site] will have dedicated servers. EA DICE's Jamie Keen confirmed the feature to PlayStation LifeStyle at the Tokyo Game Show. It's good news though a slight surprise, given that it was announced earlier this month that the game wouldn't have a server browser.

When asked directly about whether the game would have dedicated servers, Keen - who is a senior producer on Battlefront - responded clearly: "We'll still have dedicated servers. Absolutely. It's one of the hallmarks of making sure we deliver an unparalleled online service for the game."

In place of a server browser, the game instead employs a "new skill based matchmaking system", according to an EA rep on the Battlefront subreddit. Presumably that means people will be able to run ranked dedicated servers that participate in that matchmaking system.

I played ten minutes of Battlefront at this year's Gamescom, pairing with a stranger in order to play the game's last stand/horde mode equivalent. It certainly did have laser pistols in it, and those laser pistols did certainly look a lot like the ones from those movies. I remain to be convinced that this is a game for me, but I may feel differently if I can rocket-boost on top of an AT-AT.

We'll find out more when the approaching open beta launches. It'll be available to all and will include both multiplayer and singleplayer modes.