Star Wars Battlefront 2 Art Director Talks About Fondor Dock Design

The new Star Wars Battlefront II received mixed reviews. While players enjoyed its excellent story campaign, it was criticized for using EA's play-to-win model in its multiplayer gameplay. Nonetheless, the game gave fans an opportunity to explore the galaxy far, far away, even places that never appeared in the films.

Art director Steven Uphill, producer Robert Wyle, and designer John Stanley from Criterion games recently discussed their work with Lucasfilm regarding Battlefront II. They talked about how they developed the Fonder Dock.

"We always wanted to develop some type of dock and LucasFilm proposed that we focus on a level around Fondor, which is an Imperial Industrial system," Uphill said on why they wanted to develop Fondor Dock in-game. "We were really excited about this, as Fondor is a planet that hadn't been shown in film before. So we had an opportunity to get creative and visualize how this location could appear."

To develop the design, they looked at Star Wars space stations, Imperial structures, and the Shield Gate above Scarif in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. They also took inspiration from aircraft carriers.

"For us, the Fondor Dock is a crowning moment. There were other challenges that came out well, such as the Resurgent class Star Destroyer, which was a momentous task that turned out to be a fantastic looking level."

"There were challenges finding the right balance between art, design, Star Wars authenticity and readability to players," Uphill said. "Fondor Dockis a big structure and the section players get to fly around is probably three or four times the size of a Star Destroyer. For us, it was a case of designing something that looks great from a distance with a real imposing Imperial feel but also looks great close-up."

Stanley went on to explain that the level design aligns well with what Motive Studios is planning to do with the campaign level: "Motive Studios also use this level for the campaign, so we had to make sure their single player scene worked with our Starfighter Assault multiplayer scene in the same location."

Wyle also added his thoughts about the design, "The Dock's tunnel was an interesting design challenge. Imperial Structures have a very distinct look. They're very uniform; they don't use much decoration; and they are very grey. We wanted to develop a tight space with obstacles, but players would need to understand it's visual language – for example: is this an obstacle I should go towards or avoid?"

Despite its pay-to-win controversy, the development of Battlefront II's Fondor Dock design paid off, and as you can see in the game, it looks beautiful. You can read the full interview here.

Star Wars Battlefront II is now available for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC.

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