It’s Getting Hoth in Here: Star Wars Battlefront’s Upcoming Updates Promise New Maps, Modes, Characters and More

Since its launch in November, millions of battles have been waged for galactic supremacy in Star Wars Battlefront. Through all that time, DICE has kept its plans for expansion relatively under wraps, save for the free Battle for Jakku update released during Star Wars: The Force Awakens' launch. Now that the dust has settled a bit, the developer's finally pulling back the curtain on the add-ons planned for the space shooter, and it looks like fans of the classic trilogy will have plenty to look forward to throughout 2016.

New maps and modes are great and all, but it's really all about the extra hero characters and the clothes they wear. Most importantly, DICE is releasing a free update this week that will add Hoth costumes for Luke and Han when they're present on the icy planet's maps. Luke and his busted up face are nice and all, but I'm more excited to see how DICE plans to handle the great brown/blue debate fans of Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back have waged for decades. Well, so long as they haven't seen the irrefutable proof in the behind the scenes documentaries on the Blu-ray collection.

The free update coming to all Battlefront players tomorrow will add these alternate costumes for the leading men of the Rebel Alliance. Leia's only ever worn her Hoth gear in the game, so perhaps we can hope for her to get a new outfit later this year based on her Endor get up or, fingers crossed, a Leia Boushh skin. Tomorrow's content drop also gives the Tatooine Survival map a name (Raider Camp), and will allow players to last, Droid Run, Drop Zone, Hero Hunt, and Heroes vs. Villains multiplayer modes on it. There will also be balance tweaks and new community challenges introduced, but we'll finally also get the chance to create private matches with groups of our closest friends. That's right, no more will your party size limit just what modes and maps you can enjoy with your rogue pilot pals.

In February and March, new larger-scale maps will also be added for free on Hoth and Endor to allow players to partake in Walker Assault, Supremacy, Fighter Squadron and Turning Point on those planets. Turning Point will also be available in February on every map that currently supports Walker Assault, which is great because Turning Point is way more fun than Walker Assault. Yeah, I said it. I live for the chaos.

DICE also dropped the first details on the season pass content, which all owners will see two weeks before everybody else.

• Star Wars Battlefront Outer Rim (March 2016) - Fight among the factories of Sullust and battle within Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine
• Star War Battlefront Bespin (Summer 2016) - It's hunt or be hunted in this action-packed experience set in the Cloud City of Bespin
• Star Wars Battlefront Death Star (Fall 2016) – That’s no moon! One of the most iconic locations in the Star Wars universe makes its debut in Star Wars Battlefront.
• Star Wars Battlefront Expansion Pack 4 – Title TBA (Early 2017) – We will have more details to share about this exciting new expansion pack in the coming months.

Now, I don't want to just assume that a Bespin pack will include Lando Calrissian as a playable Hero character, but if it doesn't, there will be a riot in the spice mines. Adding the Death Star also means it's possible Tarkin might be a playable villain. Any time you have the opportunity to play as Peter Cushing, you do it. It's one of the unwritten laws of the universe.

There are bound to be some folks a little disappointed in the fact that all of the content is based in the classic trilogy, but it was pretty clear from the start that the first three movies were where DICE devoted all its time and attention. Maybe one day we'll see characters from the new films make the jump, but I won't be holding my breath that happens any time soon. If we get a Lando, it will all be worth it.

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