The release of EA’s new “Star Wars: Battlefront” is approaching fast, and fans are getting more and more excited to see the new title and try it out for themselves by the day. And now, it’s been announced that a few lucky selected players will actually get an opportunity to see the game with their own hands, and participate in a public playtest organized by EA.
The test will be conducted on location, directly in the offices of EA in several spots around the world – namely San Francisco and Vancouver – and while EA are inviting members of the public to take part in the play session, information about the game will actually not make its way out from the studio at this point.
That’s because EA will ask everyone who wants to participate to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), and there will be a ban on posting footage from the playtest online. This means that everyone who gets to see the game with their own eyes will not be able to speak about what they’ve seen, and we’ll have to wait for the official previews and reviews to roll out to get an impression of the game.
Of course, it’s very likely that some of the players will end up leaking information from the playtest, as it will be impossible for EA to control everyone. Unless each player gets a unique, modified version of the game just for themselves – which is not very plausible in a multiplayer title – players should be able to share their experiences in a somewhat anonymous way.
On the other hand, it will be impossible to tell which of those reports are genuine and which are false, but if a certain rumor gets repeated more than once, this will probably be a good sign that it’s actual information from the playtest sessions. EA might also decide to have some mercy on their players and release some previews for the game outside of their planned schedule, although that’s not very likely and it’s not really in EA’s style.
It’s certainly good to see that EA are giving players an opportunity to try out the game before its launch though, as this will not just be a positive experience for the players, but it will also allow EA to fine-tune the title and figure out if it has any problems before releasing it officially. Looking at the way the launch of “Battlefield 4” went, the company could certainly benefit from a little more quality control for their multiplayer titles in the future. This playtest could very well be a response to that, as they drew a lot of criticism after they released “Battlefield 4”.