Star Wars Battlefront will have 12 multiplayer maps

Star Wars Battlefront will launch with 12 multiplayer maps, at least one of which takes place on the Iceland-inspired volcanic planet Sullust, publisher Electronic Arts announced today.

Darth Vader mentions Sullust in Return of the Jedi, but the planet never appears in the film. Battlefront developer EA DICE came up with a look for Sullust, led by concept artist Anton Grandert, who designed it to have "black sharp rocks, huge land shifts, red lava, turquoise lakes, and white smoke." Lucasfilm and DICE agreed on that design, and DICE did additional research in the Lucasfilm archives to flesh out the planet's Imperial architecture.

To gather inspiration for the natural setting, members of the DICE team traveled to Iceland to capture reference photography for Sullust. Petter Skold, senior level artist at DICE and "planet owner" for Sullust, said, "We used the source material that we gathered from Iceland to shift and bend to the design detailed in our concepts," which was a different process from the way the studio built maps for Endor, Hoth and Tatooine. DICE's themes for Sullust include lava, sulfur and mining, with structures inspired by the Death Star.

Sullust will serve as the home for at least one of the 12 maps in Star Wars Battlefront. EA noted that the game will offer other locations in its "Battlefront Missions," the challenges can be played solo or cooperatively, with bots, offline or online.

Star Wars Battlefront will be released Nov. 17, a month before the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. For more on Battlefront, check out our preview from Star Wars Celebration.