Tbf, a lot of that is from long ago. Jon Burton left the company ages ago and they’ve stopped the annual releases to focus on The Skywalker Saga, and making it as good as it can be. I have to assume they haven’t been in constant crush developing the same game for 5 years or so. They’ve already pushed the deadline back so many times there’s no way they’re rushing it.
But enough of that downer, let’s talk about the fun stuff we came for: the new trailer!
The character class upgrades system sounds really cool! I would’ve liked a few more classes, and Hero and Villain are a bit strange and arbitrary as classes, but I like the system nonetheless. Another thing I really like is the little animated displays for each Episode. I also got unreasonably excited by seeing that lizard running by on Dagobah. I really loving all the brick-built environments. Unfortunately they appear to limited to ships.
In terms of freely explorable planets, the only ones of any importance missing are Dagobah, the two Death Stars, and Starkiller Base. Most of those make sense given they only exist for one film before being blown up, but Dagobah is a little strange. Regardless, they’ll all playable as levels so it’s not that big a deal.
The mumble mode obviously just gonna be audio replacement, but they’ve already shown several visual gags across the various trailers that seem eerily similar to the old style, so I think they’re definitely trying to capture that feeling.
I’m really curious about the new combat system. I already was, but this brief but intriguing explanation made me more so. Being able to aim your blaster is really nice! The cover fire mechanics seem a lot more subtle and well integrate that the version in TFA which was pretty bad. Probably the result of having years to fine-tune it instead of having to rush it out the door in a single year.
That drumroll at the end of the trailer does culminate to any big blast of horns. Very strange.