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The original Star Wars: Battlefront II is a game that almost every child saw in some form. Whether it was pining for the game on store shelves, playing it every few weeks at a friend’s house or being lucky enough to own it themselves, the multiplayer Star Wars game felt like the biggest game ever for a child in 2005.
Pandemic designer Dan Nanni joined the Battlefront team at the end of the first game’s development before spending the next year designing the Lucasfilm game. Work began immediately on the second game, a huge expansion of the first game with more maps, space combat, a new campaign, new enemies and a tonne of gameplay enhancements over the first game.
“Battlefield II was a one-year project, but Battlefield I was also a short one,” Nanni told VideoGamer. “I started right at the end of Battlefront… I remember coming in and one of our animators was working and I was looking [like] I can’t wait to dive right into Battlefront II and start making that.”
Previously, Nanni had worked at studios that were filled with constant crunch while working on multiple titles at the same time. When the developer worked to make The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey at TKO Software, work was split across three-or-four games. While work on Battlefront was rapid, it was also surprisingly without crunch.
“It was just a lot of time, a lot of work, but it was also the first time I worked at a job where I wasn’t crunching all of the time,” Nanni explained. “The previous two places I worked at, I was non-stop crunching. On the Elder Scrolls game, it was seven days a week, 12 hours a day, for months at a time. It was not good. I had to move on because I was literally killing myself trying to do that.”
Over the past two decades, Nanni has worked on Fallout 76, Starfield, Lawbreakers, Killzone, Battlefield and more, but working on Star Wars Battlefront II is still one of the best moments of his storied career.
“It was probably one of the highlights of my industry experience,” the designer told VideoGamer. “And to know that people played it and loved it and people are still playing it today – you can still download it and play it – it’s amazing. It’s so cool.”
“That’s why I got into the industry, was to get people enjoy their time together and have fun, forget about the craziness of life and all the difficulties it brings.”
STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT II DESIGNER DAN NANNI
Nanni explained that he understood the Star Wars game was a hit at a ComicCon 2005 panel featuring George Lucas’ collaborator Steven Spielberg who revealed that he has played the title with his daughter. As a gamer who grew up playing Atari 2600 games with his dad, this was the exact reason the designer wanted to make games in the first place.
“[I was] gushing just sat there and I was like, ‘Spelberg’s talking about playing the game that we made with his daughter’. It had nothing to do with just him playing the video game. It was about playing with family and bonding over it. That’s when it hit home that the hard work that you put into it is all bringing people together. And that’s why I got into the industry, was to get people enjoy their time together and have fun, forget about the craziness of life and all the difficulties it brings.”
“That was that moment where I was like, ‘I’m still here for a reason’” the developer continued. “I love this.”
As a gamer who grew up playing Battlefront II split-screen with friends, it was incredibly satisfying to explain how the game felt as a kid growing up. As I wrote earlier, everyone played or admired the game in some form. It dominated playground discussion, it was the King of after-school fun, and it felt like the biggest game ever.
“That’s awesome to hear,” Nanni told us. “I love that. I love that so much. That’s why I’m here.”
It’s been eight years since the last Battlefront game released—the other Battlefront II—and gamers are hungry once again for a third title. Hopefully, one day, we’ll get to see a third game in the series that combines prequel, original trilogy and sequel content into one massive package. Will we? Who knows.
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