Brow Beat

Death Star Approaching! Star Wars: Battlefront Reveals New Expansion

From its very first shot, Star Wars has always excelled at playing with scale: the corvette starship that looks normal size until the camera lingers over the massive hull of the Star Destroyer pursuing it. It’s a trick that was repeated for the introduction of the Super Star Destroyer in The Empire Strikes Back and once again when it was destroyed in Return of the Jedi. The trailer for the Death Star expansion for Star Wars Battlefront was clearly directed by someone who knows this trick well, traveling from a slow tracking shot of a Star Destroyer before bringing the immense Death Star into view.

The Death Star trench run has been featured in countless video games over the years, all the way back to the second Star Wars game, 1983’s coin-op cabinet. (The very first game, the Atari 2600’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back showed the Battle of Hoth, which has been revisited nearly as often.) So there’s nothing new about getting the chance to fly an X-Wing down the trench. But it has to be said: This Death Star trench looks great, and if the trailer is anything to judge by, the creative team understands what worked in the original films. As a veteran of countless Death Star trench runs, the chance to fly against TIE fighters piloted by other players when the expansion is released in September is very appealing. As some pilot or other once said, “good against remotes is one thing—good against the living? That’s something else.”