Via Ign.com:
Earlier this year, when a book sleeve revealed that Star Wars: Battlefront would be considered canon, most of us assumed it would be the DICE-developed video game. Following Star Wars Celebration, it became clear that the novel, Star Wars: Battlefront – Twilight Company, set following A New Hope, would likely be the canonical entry for that particular brand. But this didn’t answer the major question on most of our minds: Is the Star Wars: Battlefront video game canon, and will it be considered in the future of films, TV, and other games?
“It’s complicated,” Patrick Bach, GM of DICE, told IGN.
Bach explained, “Canon is connected often to story. Is every battle you play out canon, or is this specific item canon? I can’t give you a clear answer on canon.” Because Star Wars: Battlefront does not have a campaign, its true storytelling opportunities are limited. It draws from the Original Trilogy alone, where A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi have already told the true stories of the universe. Cooperative missions take place in “iconic moments” from those films, and could presumably have static, canonical end points — destroying the shield generator on Hoth as the Imperials, disabling the Death Star’s shield on Endor, etc.
Battlefront honors the canon of Star Wars, but the unpredictable nature of competitive multiplayer in an online sandbox means there’s no way to make any match matter to the wider fiction. We never saw TIE Fighters taking down X-Wings in the Tatooine canyons, but DICE adheres explicitly to the Lucasfilm Archives’ original props and the aesthetic of the Original Trilogy. Furthermore, the developer can’t — and often chooses not to — deviate from expectation.
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