First excerpt from Battlefront II: Inferno Squad. The Christie Golden novel, a tie-in to the upcoming game, will be out in hardcover and eBook on July 25, or in a special deluxe edition available only at San Diego Comic-Con July 20-23.
Forewarned is forearmed: How to get the Inferno Squad exclusive at SDCC
Del Rey has the details on how San Diego Comic-Con attendees can get a copy of the convention exclusive edition of Battlefront II: Inferno Squad. It’s a little more complicated than the Thrawn sales at Celebration, but will hopefully result in more folks being able to actually get the book.
→ J.W. Rinzler, formerly of Lucasfilm, is writing a blog series about his time with the company, as well as his own history with the Bay Area. Check it out on his blog.
→ And finally, some release notes: On the Front Lines got pushed back at some point. It’s now due out in August. The schedule has been updated.
Inferno Squadron exclusive coming to SDCC
Among the Star Wars exclusives for San Diego Comic-Con is a special edition of Christie Golden’s Battlefront II: Inferno Squadron. The book is officially out July 25, so this gives fans at the con (July 20-23) a few days jump on it, assuming they get there before it sells out. For now, there’s the first excerpt. The game’s star, Janina Gavankar, has an extended interview from her Star Wars Show apperance.
→ In addition to their Star Wars Adventures series, IDW will launch a with an 80-page The Force Awakens adaptation for young readers. It’s written by Alessandro Ferrari, with art from “a group of Disney artists.” Look for it in August.
→ Timothy Zahn talks writing and his latest Star Wars novel, Thrawn, with the New York Daily News. He reveals that he’s pitched two-more post-Thrawn novels on the character. (Though, as us Legends fans know, that doesn’t mean LFL will take him up on them.) He also has an extended version of his Star Wars Show interview.
The Force Awakens: There’s something about Jakku
Sure, we got our big news today in a tiny clip, but here’s the rest of what’s been floating about. Or dropping fast, as the case may be.
→ More hints about the Battle of Jakku and the state of the galaxy after Return of the Jedi in EA’s latest missive regarding the Battlefront expansion that drops in early December. By which I basically just mean they mention the New Republic again.
→ Scott Mendelson calls out the ridiculous box office predictions (yes, they’re getting even higher) for setting the bars so stupid high.
→ Force Friday check-in: Your Target may have a Star Wars crawl on their checking lanes and a remote-controlled BB-8 has been spotted!
→ Spoiler corner: A certain squadron name, and what may lead up to it.
Celebration Anaheim: Battlefront novel, Lando mini and Shattered Empire details
A couple of quick updates this morning: We’ve learned at Celebration that Alexander Freed will be writing Battlefront: Twilight Company, the November novel from Del Rey.
(The actual Battlefront game was this morning’s big draw, but more on how that’s relevant to us later. )
Marvel has been dropping their news ahead of their panel as well. First we learned that a Lando Calrissian limited series will follow Princess Leia. It’ll be from Charles Soule and Alex Maleev and issue #1 comes out in July.
And this morning, some Shattered Empire details. The limited series will be written by (as we knew) Greg Rucka, with art and cover from Marco Chechetto. (Is the Phil Noto piece just a variant?)
The Del Rey and Marvel panels are tomorrow, so no doubt we’ll learn more then.
Is there a Battlefront novel in the pipeline?
This one has been floating around for a bit, but if you look at the timeline in the upcoming novel releases, (see the previews for Lords of the Sith or the A New Dawn paperback) you’ll see a list of much of the canon content thus far. (Basically, everything save the comics.) Included on this list? Battlefront. We know a new Star Wars Battlefront game is coming, but a timeline placement for it between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back seems odd, seeing as we’ve heard that the game itself will cover several eras. (With much of the publicity art so far devoted to the Battle of Hoth from Empire.)
But it would make sense if this is actually a Battlefront novel tie-in that covers only one portion of the game. Jedi Bibliothek (translated) thinks this book may be Untitled Novel #24, which is set for November 3, 2015. It also features a bio for Steve Perry, but as usual, that is neither here nor there at this point.
We had feared (or hoped, in some cases) that #24 would be The Force Awakens novelization, but that is looking increasingly unlikely.
This week in The Force Awakens rumors: Leia’s costume, a line from Han, and Battlefront rumblings
The latest batch of rumors from Making Star Wars include a sketch of Leia’s costume, Imperial ranks and symbols and, from an extra, a line of Han Solo dialogue.
Jason also learned that the new Battlefront game will span the entire saga – including some post-Return of the Jedi stuff. (“Lucasfilm has a lot of plans for that era.” Damn right they do.) The final section of the game will involve a battle early on in The Force Awakens. The game is apparently due to drop only a month before the movie’s release… It’ll be interesting to see if it actually makes that window.
EA re-examining approach to Star Wars games
Patrick Söderlund, the executive vice president of EA Games Label at EA, recently spoke to Polygon about their approach to the Star Wars universe.
“The most important thing for me is that we take the Star Wars license and come up with games where peoples’ jaws drop,” he said. “We need to do with this what [Batman: Arkham Asylum] did for the Batman license.”
He revealed for the upcoming Star Wars: Battlefront game, announced at E3 earlier this year, EA’s DICE studio came forward to want to work on it – and is using resources developed by LucasArts for Battlefront 3.
“We didn’t toss anything out,” he said. “We’re looking at the old games. We have access to everything that was done during the LucasArts era. But we do want to take our own stance.”
EA: A new Star Wars Battlefront is coming
Electronic Arts has announced the first fruit of their Star Wars deal: The third Star Wars: Battlefront, which has apparently been highly anticipated by those who desire such things.
The game is being developed by DICE and will use the Frostbite 3 engine. Platform details and release date are TBA.
(Video embed timing out on you? Here’s the direct link.)
Revenge of the 6th: Our news overflowth
May 4th stuff was a busy Friday, Saturday wasn’t much better, and a whole bunch of stuff got lost in the shuffle. As we nurse our Avengers hangover, here it is.
MTV has wondered why Luke Skywalker got no love from the famous folks, asking our pal Bryan Young why not.
Geekmom is throwing a Star Wars week. So far, they’ve highlighted a video on the 501st and the Rebel Legion, are giving away a GPS and interviewed the Wampug.
The Hollywood Reporter looked at where the stars of Star Wars are now. You probably know that already.
There was a couple at Kotaku: A look at Masters of Teräs Käsi, which they call ‘possibly the worst Star Wars video game ever made,’ as well as great moments of Star Wars gaming. And, finally, why Battlefront III was cancelled.
Entertainment Weekly highlight ten things ‘worth celebrating,’ mostly EU stuff.
And finally, Chris Hardwick pimped Course of the Force on Today. He also revealed that they’ve build a sail barge that we’ll see at Celebration VI.