I always thought the “Clone Commander” for the officer/leader was a dev error and mostly thought they were just Clone Marine officers being transferred to 501st legion
@@slothfulcobra Yup, Galactic Marines Lore Wise also does boarding actions too but I think they’re modeled After the US Marine Expeditionary Force. While the Space Clone Marines would be regulated to Naval ship defense and counter boarding actions
@@Crappy-1441 Galactic Marine are Marine Expeditionary Forces and the Space Clone Marine are the old Marine Detachment(MARDET) the USMC would provide for US Navy Ships from 1775-83 and 1796-2000 small units of Marines (50-100 men) for ship defense boarding and counter boarding actions along with LIMITED shore actions (one is what the Marine Corps became and the other it what the Marine corps used to be also what some global Marine Corps still are)
I had seen that the reason the clones look the way they do is that Pandemic had some early clone trooper concept art and was under the impression that all the clones in EpIII were going to be blue, and that the clone commander was the galactic marine. by the time they finished the game, the clones had much more work done on them in the flim
I think an obvious honorable mention would be the CIS having Droids get inside other Droids and operating them as vehicles. It's clearly necessary from a gameplay development POV, but it's still funny. I thought for a long time that the CIS gunship droid was a piloted vehicle until the Clone Wars Onderon episodes.
I kinda imagined the B1-droids like folding up and getting inside the bottom of the vulture ship or something. We see they can do that as early as Phantom menace
The Gunship might actually have been intented to be a piloted vehicle originally. At least the Snail tank, which appears in the same scene, was originally supposed to be one, as can be seen from deleted scenes from The Revenge of the Sith. However, since those were cut, visual dictionaries and other books referred to it as a droid, and that stuck.
Also the magnaguards have grenade launchers instead of melee weapons for some reason. Like, if they didn't want the magnaguards to be a melee class for a non-hero, they could have just replaced them with something else. Even just elevating the B2 battledroid to an elite class and making the default trooper a B1 with an assault rifle would have been fine. The B2 is unique enough as it is.
Melee classes could also work. MagnaGuard with electrostaff, Wookiee Berserker with ryyk blade, Emperor's Royal Guard with force pike, and Clone Assassin with vibroblades.
I never minded this one too much since even in the clone wars cartoon we can see magna guards use other munitions instead of just the electrostatic. Watch the arc with grevious and kit fisto. There is a magna guard that just fires a rocket launcher
My interpretation of the Journal of the 501st was that it was always a collection of memoirs from various clone troopers in the 501st, I actually never thought about it being written by one individual; this idea is helped by the fact that they all had the same or similar enough voices, and similar enough experiences and culture, as well as the fact that it is titled "501st Journal" and not "CT-3928's / DescriptiveNickname's Journal".
My theory is that most of the 501st clones would end up becoming Dark Troopers. It's the only logical way that they would still be combat capable by the Battle of Hoth.@@CoreysDatapad
@@alexp5256the problem is clones are still super soldiers, and they were in legends and cannon still combat ready in the empire by the time of hoth, hell, even in cannon you have captain rex, a first batch clone that is combat ready during the battle of endor, much later then the battle of hoth, the clones can be a lot older then a human for there accelerated aging, but that won't mean they wouldn't still be a superhuman for that age bracket
@@CoreysDatapadIf it is multiple clones, the later journals might be from younger clones, which would explain why during the GCW they have no issue killing rebels, despite the mention during order 66 that some clones might have "private, traitorous thoughts".
A topic I would love to see is Pre-2008 Clone Wars lore. Because Clone Wars lore before the animated series was very different. I am surprised no one can made a video on this yet.
Would love Corey to discuss the differing Multiversal fates of Barriss Offee, Adi Gallia, Even Piell, Quinlan Vos, Eeth Koth, and even obscure folk like Beilert Vallance.
In my head I had always just assumed what remaining clones there were. Were officers mostly in non combat roles, or phase 0 Dark Troopers by the time of Hoth.
Well for the clone wars era clones at least because the legends Galactic Empire continued to use and manufacture clones along side human recruits with humans and non jango fett clone lines starting to enter the Storm trooper Corps following the Kamino Clone Rebellion in12BBY
i assumed in legends clones matured to 20 twice as fast but after that they aged normally. (So they would be 45 by time of ESB which should still be capable fighting age for genetically enhanced super soldiers with futuristic medicine.) Regardless, this is preferable to me instead of Canon where Filoni is having clones totally phased out immediately like half a year after ROTS so they cannot seem like bad guys who did the empires dirty work (also why he included the chips to make them victims). also not a fan of removing the 501st as Vader's personal legion that still kept their blue markings and replacing them with the 1st legion thats mainly storm troopers. (but who knows bad batch has 7 episodes left i would totally cream my pants if we see 501st troopers with blue markings in the imperial era lead by Appo and Vader. And there are some disney canon comics where vader is serving with the 501st post order 66 but filoni has largely ignored pre existing lore even disney canon.)
inhibitor chips perhaps George signed off on that but bad batch where the clones and all the republic equipment are being phased out for nonsense plot device reasons, thats on Filoni.@@Bluesonofman
Tbh, I think the 501 journal can't be treated like a personal personal one. There is a greate example in real history in no. 303 Squadron during battle of Britan. It's diary was started by one of the pilots but was countinued durring the whole existance of the unit, even after it's creator was killed in action. The clone that was reading it could have been from the last legal clone batch, so he would be in "his" 40s
This game has so many weird little design choices that make me think the devs (and honestly the filmmakers at the time too) really didn't know what this era was specifically supposed to be like. Because this game was being developed in conjunction with Revenge of the Sith, they were probably only given a one-pager and certain film shots, limiting the devs to take what they see and extrapolate it. This explains certain stuff like the clone commander being a galactic marine, Anakin being on the dark side, etc.
@@GrosvnerMcaffreythe clones having accelerated aging doesn’t change much. The clones were around 13 when the clone wars began but appeared as adults in their early 20’s. The 501st becoming the original batch of stormtroopers for Vader’s fist seems pretty logical What doesn’t make sense obviously is the clone narrator staying in imperial service for the entire galactic civil war. By that time all of the clones would’ve retired and be replaced by normal stormtroopers
@@GrosvnerMcaffrey in Legends the Empire didn't stop making clones until Warlord period of the Galactic Civil War following the battle of Endor (minus a brief period post Endor where Thrawn order clone production restarted but that ended just as soon as it started). Following the Kamino Clone Rebellion in 12BBY the Stormtrooper Corps when from being exclusively Fett clones to having multiple non Fett clone lines(along side the Fett Clone lines) and the introduction of Normal Human recruits into the Corps. With the 501st Legion remaining exclusively Fett clone until the Battle of Hoth(although its more likely that end following the Battle of Yavin IV when the 501st lost 2/3rd of the unit in the destruction of the Death Star and as such would need to be taken off the frontlines briefly to rebuild)
The clone classes always bothered me more, since despite being the 501st, there's also the 21st Nova Corps, 7th Legion, 41st (for the scout troopers), and the purple 212th paratrooper that reminds me of 5th Fleet Security. Though presumably this was either a gameplay concession so that every class had a distinct look about them, or merely more of that movie tie-in stuff since they really wanted to show off Episode 3 and the stuff that's in it. That and the game was rushed so part of it could be a time constraint issue too, like they got to model some new stuff like the Rebel tank but didn't have enough time to make new models across the board where needed.
@@totalCoolerUsername I'm pretty sure that Battlefront II predates it, but most of those clone units were first depicted in Revenge of the Sith and given names a few months after in things like the star wars insider magazine and toys not in The Clone Wars.
The V-Wing kinda came full-circle and now there's actually a ground-attack variant of it, and this is still canon under Disney. So Battlefront II's bomber V-Wing is one of the parts of non-movie lore that survived the Legends decanonisation.
While that may be, you want to know what else would've worked for the Republic bomber slot better than the V-wing? The Y-wing. Yeah. The Y-wing. People often forget it was in both the Clone Wars and later on was the Vanguard of the Rebel bomber forces as their mainstay during the Galactic Civil War. Redundancy isn't a problem if it *makes sense*.
@@ToaArcani mean it was established in the lore even before we knew what the clone wars was that y-wings were ships from the republic era, same with Z-95s
My internal logic for the campaign was that there were multiple clones doing journal entries. I mean they were all clones so the voice is supposed to be the same for all clones
Victory II class frigate confused me very much as a kid. Though I never really consumed any EU media outside of a few Star Wars games I had (including the BFs), I enjoyed reading about the vehicles and things of Star Wars, and so I tried to look up this unique ship. But basically all I got was the Victory class Star Destroyer, which looked nothing like the one from BF2 and didn't even have the same classifcation. "Star Destroyer? what?" I don't remember what exactly I thought, but I feel like it was something to the effect of "Perhaps the devs made a wrong (really wrong) design for this Star Destroyer for some reason" or something. To this day I'm still confused as to just why it was named "Victory II class frigate." Like, was it meant to be a successor to Victory I Star Destroyer?
Uh... well, the Empire likes to use similar names. We have three or four Imperial-class repulsortank models, Imperial-II-class star destroyer, Imperial-II-class frigate, so why they can't made also Victory-II class frigate? Maybe developers thought sometimes someone will made Victory-I -class frigate, I don't know.
I think I just glossed over it as a kid. It's pretty normal for these games to introduce new things when needed (see also Galactic Battlegrounds), so I just assumed that the Imperial frigate and the Munificent-class frigate (which I didn't recognize) were original.
Opposite of what we're talking about here, but related - something that's lore accurate but always bugged me for balance reasons was the LAAT being the only gunship with limited ammo, just because of one line about being out of rockets in AOTC.
The funny thing about that line is that, while they may have been out of rockets for the missle tubes, they still had six other front facing guns that would have worked (the 2 chin mounted ball turrets, the two manned side mounted bubble turrets, and the two wing mounted beam emitter turrets), so that line doesn't even make sense since there is no way for every weapon on that larty to have run out of ammo.
I disagree about the importance of the story. The journal makes it clear that they knew about order 66 ahead of time. In the end, they had to betray the jedi that they had fought and died with. When the time came, they also clearly had feelings about it. They weren't mind controlled into doing it, they weren't forced to do it (at least not more than how a military normally works), and yet they did it. I also appreciated the perspective on being a stormtrooper. They just finished fighting one war, then all of a sudden there's another. I would be pissed too.
I think this this video lacks some context regarding the developement of the game and why some of the choices made by the devs make sense. And how it went. Despite the sucess of the game at the time it was a very bumpy road. And it was a stressful. LucasArts gave only 1 year of dev time. Firstly, Pandemic devs were given early ROTS concept arts and scripts from mid 2003 to late 2003. They did not have access to any 2004 stuff. hence why a lot of stuff in-game doesn't match with the final cut of the movie itself (501st's blue shade slightly lighter than compared to the movie, inaccurate galactic marine texture and mesh, Aayla Secura having two lightsabers reffering to Derek Thompson's artworks etc.) In an interview Josh Resnick, founder of Pandemic Studios noted that it was super difficult to get assets from Revenge of the Sith in order to build the related in-game assets. Secondly, regarding the campaign: the campaign is indeed crammed because a campaign was never planned for this game. It was supposed to be a multiplayer-game-only: "Another LucasArts employee remembers a particularly divisive decision made by executives for Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that was already in danger of quality issues due to LucasArts only giving it one year of development time. “It was originally being designed as a multiplayer-only game,” this staffer recalls. “It remained that way for most of its development cycle. New people who came in after the game was in development basically said, ‘No, we’re not going to make money off of a multiplayer-only game, you have to put in a single-player campaign.’ Pandemic screamed bloody murder and said it couldn’t be done, but [LucasArts] said that they had to figure it out. Battlefront II’s producer at LucasArts basically had a breakdown bringing the game in, but the team made their deadlines and the game sold like crazy. It was probably a bad lesson for Ward to learn, because LucasArts was successful at doing something that everyone thought was impossible.” www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/04/04/fall-of-the-empire-how-inner-turmoil-brought-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx
Yeah this makes a lot more sense after reading this. Game-devs always make choice based off specific reasons. I wish this video had been a little more in-depth regarding the development of Star Wars Battlefront II. Everything could be explained.
I don't know Corey much but I think he's mainly an Empire at War youtuber. He doesn't know much about Star Wars Battlefront II compared to communities like Gametoast.
I'm aware of most of this, but most of this video was already couching the criticisms in the context, and that's why I didn't bring up every single inconsistency. It's not particularly relevant to the topics actually being discussed if you go back and look at the topics I actually covered, except the galactic marine thing but that was already a minor side comment. But at the end of the day, the game is what it is, and that's what's being commented on. The V-Wing, Munificent, etc I don't believe were in the category of assets they didn't have reasonable enough info on to make different choices, for example. The campaign being a last minute addition is basically included in the context at the end, but I've spent plenty of time talking about how it was rushed in other places as well (which is the cause of a lot of my biggest complaints about the game in general, which I'm pretty open about not liking much as a result). The lore issues I spoke about with the campaign wouldn't have had anything to do with dev crunch or resources, either, which is again why I focused on that. It was just so focused on RotS and the Clone Was that it was never really going to get away from that. The lore it went in different directions with is a very different topic from the development difficulties, which is a much longer topic, and why I tried to avoid too much that was tied into that. That's like a 30 min video on its own.
Just so you know, the shade of blue on the 501st in the game is the same shade od blue on the 501st in the movie, it just appears darker because nearly every shot of the 501st is showing them at night.
2:06 - That's because the Galactic Marines/21st Nova Corps design was originally a commander concept art. The same goes for the engineer's helmet, the heavy trooper and the jet trooper. In fact, Gree's outfit is an evolution of said piece of concept art which was repurposed for the 501st jet trooper in BF2. The 501st sharpshooter is also the concept art for the 212th airborne trooper, which during productin was part of the larger "Utapau clones". Eventually they went with the famous orange markings for the 212th and those markins with the blue stripes were instead made part of the 5th Fleet Security, except in the case of the 501st sharpshooter. This game was developed alongside the production and post-production of ROTS so lack of communication between Lucasfilm/JAK Films, Lucas Licensing, LucasArts and Pandemic meant that there would be inconsistensies between what would be shown in the film, in the novelisation of the film, the comic adaptation, the junior novelisation, the video-game adaptation, BF2, the Republic comics, the Clone Wars Adventures comics, Clone Wars (2003), Labyrinth Of Evil and other Clone Wars multimedia project material/ROTS tie-in material. ROTS' pre-production started in 2002 right after the release of AOTC and a lot of stuff would change in the different versions of the script, the cut took some time to be finalised because they shot a whole lot of material, there's at least 30 minutes of deleted scenes that we have seen, plus a number of other deleted scenes we haven't seen yet, or deleted scenes that we have only seen in the ROTS tie-in material, such as the game, the novel and the comic. A number of the unused clone concepts from the pre-production/production of the film were repurposed for other projects like BF2, the ROTS game, the Republic comics, the ROTS LEGO line and Hasbro's ROTS line as well.
Honestly I always preferred that the BFII idea that the clones just followed through with order 66 without implants or whatever. I hated the implant idea in Clone Wars series, theyre soldiers first and foremost, literally bred to follow orders from birth. The line "did we have any private traitorous thoughts? Possibly. But noone said a word" I feel was a perfect explanation.
In the narration about the 501st during the empire days it is explained that they refilled their ranks with non-clones, so presumably they are old veterans who don't view these new recruits as good as their fallen brothers, so perhaps they have more of a command or training position than a boots on the ground role, the regiment exists but the men in it have changed
The 501st remain exclusively Fett Clones until after the Battle of Hoth (more likely the Battle of Yavin IV when the the Legion was reduced to a Third of its authorized strength by the destruction of the Death Star) also Legends stormtrooper corps didn't stop manufacturing clones until the post endor period of the Galactic Civil War minus a brief peroid under thrawn to refill the depleted ranks of the Imperial Military in 9ABY(The Corps was exclusively fett clones until 12bby following the Kamino Clone Rebellion where empire started other Clone Lines and start recruiting normal humans into the Corps)
I know its weird, but I've always had a soft spot for the Victory II Frigate. Probably some bias there since I played a lot of BF2 as a kid, but even now I really like the design -- probably one of the best non-movie frigate designs imo. The 'sword' shape it has looks really cool, and I'm particularly fond of the bridge design. It still evokes an imperial aesthetic but the fact its much closer to the hull almost helps to fix the common criticism of Imperial vessels always making their bridge big targets. I wish it was used more in the star wars EU but I can understand why its only made a few scant appearances outside of BF2.
It needs to be thicker, but yeah, wish it gets a shocking reappearance, even in a Multiversal storyline featuring a starship defense fleet using holdovers from other universes.
Actually the aging thing probably wasent talked about much when the story was drawn up. In episode 2 it was only said they had an accelerated GROWTH rate not they age twice as fast. So the oldest clones in the 501st would biologically 45 in this.
It was very heavily implied that they aged twice as fast because the segue into the talk on growth acceleration is them looking a batch of 5 year old clones that appear to be 10 years old.
@@rileymosman2808 In some of the old EU books like the Thrawn Trillogy they mention how towards the end of the Clone Wars they were able to grow them in months/weeks, I don't think that would have been viable if their aging continued at that rate after adulthood.
@@x3tc1 Are you talking about the ysalamiri? Cause that allowed it to be done in days/hours. The nornal methods were still said to be very quick by the end of the Clone Wars, just not that quick.
I've always loved the design of the Galactic Marines, so at least mods have that as an option for normal trooper. But I grew up with the Battlefront games so I didn't know a lot of these things weren't right until a bit later and I learned more😂
That would be more fun, the 170 has multiple seats for rear gunner and crew chief or commander or whatever that seat above the pilot is for. I remember the lego model having bombs.
The marine being the skin for the commander and not the marine does bug me but I also think the only reason it was classified as a marine to begin with was for hasbro to make toys of it and they couldn't just make a snow trooper again I mean cmon that's a snow trooper
You shouldn't forget that the game released in 2005 and therefore was more connected to ROTS than any other Star Wars media which is why they decided to bring as much stuff from that film into the game.
I've always been of the viewpoint that the 501st Journal was a post-Hoth amalgamation of personal journals and official reports (some classified) dating back to Geonosis, created by the Jango-template Clones and formed into a semi-singular and linear narrative (probably with heavy amounts of Imperial editing) when they realized that their time was truly over - Between the Empire's shift towards non-clones, their usage of multiple templates when they did still supplement their forces with clones, and the degradation of Jango's genetic material. The story always seemed to have a retrospective tone to it, and when additional details both contemporary and afterwards are factored in (*knowing* they would carry out Order 66, even though even before TCW Brain Chips every other source had Order 66 merely being one of many contingency orders rather than a plan every Clone knew about, as just one example) it fits a whole lot better than "a single Clone fought from Geonosis to Hoth and survived it all, in a game where death and reclassing is part of the gameplay loop".
“Before clones got examined as characters” It happened at least a year earlier with The Cestus Deception in mid 2004. Might have happened even earlier in comics, potentially.
I will always find the Clone Rebellion being more logical and fun reason for the Clones being phased out rather than simply budget. The galaxy is huge and raising an army of Clones on one planet costs pennies. Think of it. Thousands of worlds supposedly, with trillions of intelligent life. Easily affordable by taxes.
The game was made to coincide with Episode 3 and some choices where most likely made based on concept art and the movie trailer as the movie had not come out yet.
Yep, there wasn't any communication between the devs and the movie makers. They got given a very bare bones story plot and some visuals but nothing else.
Heard a theory that the clone trooper you play as in the 501st journals eventually goes on to become a Dark Trooper. He would probably receive some sort of augmentations to cushion the effects of aging and allow him to survive on the front lines till the Battle of Hoth.
I doubt this possibility simply because nearly every Phase-0 dark trooper hated what they were forced to become (because becoming a dark trooper was not a voluntary decision for the clones who became one) and because of the horrible things done to them, many Phase-0 dark troopers became depressed, went insane, or even committed suicide which resulted in the dark trooper project switching to droids with the Phase-1 dark trooper.
the coolest lore thing that this game did for clones was just say that they always knew they would betray the jedi, that’s what they were trained for, that’s why jango was specifically chosen for the template and that they made the conscious decision to execute all the jedi, honestly i like it better that way then the revised “inhibitor chip” that automatically makes all the clones evil for a little bit
Yeah just have a bunch of dudes with nearly the exact same brain pattern all knowing they are going to shoot the people that read minds on a daily basis in the face while constantly being around the very people who read minds on a daily basis many of whom are extremely suspicious about this army of identical dudes who look just like the bounty hunter they just killed. There's no way this can ever go badly or need any sort of change or retcon! And note: Battlefront II is the *only* depiction to have that "we always knew" depiction, every other one even before TCW had Order 66 merely being one of 150 contingency orders and not a very specific plan, and even RotS hints at far more control being put on the Clones than them merely carrying out an order that involves murdering children without a second thought.
That piece of lore, about the clones always knowing they were going to execute Order 66, is exclusive to this game. Every other piece of Legends media has it where the clones know OF Order 66, since it's one of the 150 contingency orders that all clones have memorized, but not that they are ever going to execute it, with many clones actually being shocked or surprised when they receive the order.
I don't see why the 501st's advanced aging couldn't have been fixed, there wasn't so much of this idea that the Empire threw the clones away in the EU. Furthermore, it could also be that the clone narrator is actually multiple different clones over time, and they were just reinforced with more Jango-template troopers as time went on.
After the Clone Rebellion mission the narrator does say “Though the 501st would remain pure, the rest of the army gradually became more diverse. We never liked the new guys”
@@CoreysDatapad The idea the Empire continued to use clones is throughout the EU. As I said in another comment, people like Jax and Kanos were supposed to be clones from new templates, and existing clones like Cody continued to be in service at least as late as 1BBY. This hardly conflicts with the fact that the Empire was also using standard recruiting practices.
I still think the writer should be the same clone. Just look at how the Disney Alt-universe effectively made sure Rex seems to take part on Endor, so having an old clone still be ready and waiting on fighting isn't far-fetched.
Tbh actually within TIE Fighter the Maarek Stele Chronicles, there is mention of the Empire field modifying regular TIE Fighters in certain situations. So TIE Fighters having missile loadouts isn't that crazy, just not common.
The clone narrator could be a Phase 0 Dark Trooper. The Empire promoted the idea to clones that by join the Dark Trooper program, they don't need to worry about the rapid aging anymore by becoming cyborgs.
The clones who became phase 0 dark troopers were not given a choice in the matter. They were forcibly recruited and ended up getting 70% of their bodies replaced, which in turn caused many of them to go insane or commit suicide since they weren't able to cope with what they'd become.
It's rather funny cause I believe in Canon, there is a V-Wing that had particle cannons and the ability to drop proton bombs. So I guess a variant of the V-Wing managed to get into Canon.
It's very refreshing to have someone make a video like this who actually understands the narrative and mechanical goals that developers have. Good video!
I mean the retired Clone Trooper could have been like an Officer or Senior NCO by the time of the Galactic civil war. I don't remember was the clones aging faster after reaching adulthood established at this point, or was it like with Spaarti Clones, which to my understanding, aged normally after being created. As for replacing Clones with Stormtroopers, from my understanding, the Implication of George Lucas was to retcon all the Stormtroopers to have always been clones with Episode III, and Battlefront II was following that.
The Stormtrooper Corps was exclusively Fett Clones until the end of the Campaign levels set on Kamino where following the Clone Rebellion in 12BBY the Empire started Multiple non Fett Clone lines and recruiting normal humans
I don't think George Lucas tried retconning stormtroopers, he did multiple edits and we never got a Temuera dub in any of them. Also, they were still pretty human in BFII (voicelines) and other media did the same
I personally really liked the clone story from battlefront 2. I think keeping the same narrator in both the prequel and OT sections showed that, to the average clone trooper there really want much difference before and after the fall of the republic. It is my head cannon on how the clone troopers thought and why they followed order 66. To be honest though I never really dug into clone lore.
Given the existence of Dark Troopers in the Galactic Empire roster i don't think it's too big of a deal that the clones in the 501st Legion (which have always been clones whether in the Empire or otherwise) are still in active duty up until the battle of Hoth. We don't know what specific role the clone narrator had at that point, only that he was present.
With Battlefront 2 they made the 501st the last exclusively Fett clone unit in the Empire until after battle of Hoth(more likely after the battle of Yavin Iv since the 501st was reduced to a third of authorized strength with the death star destruction)with non Fett clones and normal humans being transferred in from other Legions or assigned to the 501st following the completion of Training
2:09 Alright so the reason for this strange mystery is that Pandemic Studios recieved Clone Trooper concept art & used many of the designs for Troopers. The Engineer is actually based off of the cut Clone Commander, Faie without his tunic piece. The Heavy Trooper design is based off of a earlier version of Bacara without any of the dark markings on his chest pad or small shoulder bell piece. In a loading screen & demo for Battlefront 2, you can see a "Clone Commander" with a bit of a different design, notably the face & boots, again they used earlier designs for some of these guys. The Sharpshooter uses a early blue design of the 2nd Airborne Company. The reason why the 501st standard trooper doesn't have leg striping is because of concept art & a earlier model. The Jet Trooper is actually based off of a earlier design for Commander Gree.
Story wise, it doesn't make much sense for the 501st to be in all the prequel missions same time. Not only are they traveling across the galaxy more then the average star wars story, it's also stated that they kill all of their jedi commanders. So either we're actually listening to multiple 501st veteran narrators, or in this continuity order 66 went a lot more differently then in the movies.
Or you could just deem them as a special ops division made for such extra work proceedings. Not unlike how other fictional groups like Operations Group Echo: Black Ops 9 and Ghost Recon do their necessary deeds. And they didn't actually kill their Jedi commanders at all in the story. Where'd you even get the idea?!
I mean, I think having the 501st being on different planets at the same time works if it's just separate detachments of the legion sent on different missions. A detachment of the 501st being on Kashyyyk was mentioned in one of the Dark Horse comics, even though the bulk of the 501st would've been on Coruscant at that exact same moment. Really, the only planet where having a portion of the 501st just doesn't work is Utapau, since that was a strictly 7th Sky Corps operation, but every other planet is fine.
I can live with and look past the clones having different armor looks for each class. But for some reason, making the B2’s the default infantry class for the CIS irks me so much lol. I get that it would’ve made 4 CIS classes the same droid just reskinned but it was always jarring to me playing GC and just facing an army of B2s for the first half of the game until the AI recruited more classes.
I always disliked the B2s being the standard infantry, always felt it was a waste, would have preferred if they put in the shoes of the rocket troopers, beef up there arm enough to be on par with a rocketlauncher, and bam, the b2 is now special, and dosen't take up a special trooper slot so you can keep the magna guard and the droideka
The clones actively knowing that Order 66 was going to happen from the beginning doesn't fit with any of the other Legends stories. Everything else about the 501st journal works fine, but not that.
@@CloneCommanderCrater1102 The Republic Commando Novels literally say out loud everything about Order 66 lol. Clones were trained for all of the 150 orders. Order 66 was well known by both the Jedi and the GAR.
@MandoMarsi Let me clarify. The clones know about Order 66, but they don't know that it was always going to happen. In Battlefront 2, the clones have been preparing specifically for Order 66 since their training.
@@CloneCommanderCrater1102 Oh, now I get what you mean but the 501st didn't know that it's gonna happen either. The 501st Journals reflect on the past.
Personally I thought for the 501st part that they're kind of like the USMC, they go in first and clear things out, get stuff done, then another unit like the army (or like the 212th, Galactic Marines) would move in and hold down the ground after the 501st left. I think this idea makes more sense too when you remember in the game the retired trooper says that they were directly under the command of Palpatine.
When I played the Classic Collection, for the first time after it being years since I played the originals, seeing the V-Wing as a bomber threw me off. I had to look up the originals to see that they also had the V-Wing in that role, but at the time the V-Wing was new to the story and fairly undefined. I think they should have put in a Republic Era Y-Wing as the bombers here and used the V-Wing as the interceptor, since it's a bit odd for a clone to fly a "Jedi Starfighter".
I kind of like the idea that the clones are biologically around 70 towards the end of the campaign. With the empire caring a lot less about the ethics of throwing battle hardened old men into combat. Vader in particular may have had a preference to keep his clones over fresh recruits. With the 501st possibly getting special treatment to slow down their aging. I can imagine a scene where rebels fight off a 501st strike force suffering heavy losses. Then seeing the face of a heavily aged clone when pulling of one of their helmets.
The Republic used Y-Wings too, except they were covered up and not as empty as the later scavenged rebel Y-Wings. It was in the Clone Wars show so it's canon. Also why did Anakin and Grievous' ships become general infantry ships?!
Unfortunately, TCW 2008 shouldn't exactly be canon in Legends. Wookieepedia sure muddied up that necessary truth all too sadly. The Belbullabs may have been MagnaGuard craft, not unlike the P-38s from TCW 2008, while the Eta Actis craft being flown by the clones may have been a sneaky way to train them in flying TIEs after the Clone Wars.
Game balancing the Starfighters was always a peeve of mine. I did prefer Bespin - Platforms in the first game just for the reason of the Y Wing having actual laser canons
With the V-Wing, the game came out around the same time as Revenge of The Sith. They wanted it to visually reference the film at every angle, to make the player feel like they were fighting in battles they could see in the movie. Also, the BTL-B Y-Wing that the Republic uses wouldn't exist until the Clone Wars CGI years later. They really could have taken some time to keep the starfighter lore consistent considering how much work they put into every other part of the lore.
The pre-Disney Star Wars lore handled clone aging a bit differently. Their rapid aging was only until adulthood, which is why towards the end of the Clone Wars they could be grown in months/weeks instead of years.
I kinda wish game devs from different studios would have closely collaborated on those kinds of things. So from different games that came out at the same time or were in development at the time would have vehicles and Aesthetics crossing over with each other more for a more accurate and immersive experience, even if that's a little unrealistic. For the rebels things like the MAAT as a rebel transport or the Mark 3 Clone Armor for the early empire missions from The Force Unleashed would have been so cool to see in battlefront.
Could be worse. We might be getting the Disney Alt-universe nonsense of still including trash content like Battlefront 2 2017 into otherwise good content in the process.
Regarding the ARC-170 being a bomber, I believe Lucasfilm were insistent on Pandemic pulling from the movies instead of the EU where they could for Battlefront 2, whereas they got away with pulling more from the EU in the first game. If it had been a few years later, they could have had the Y-Wing as the Republic bomber, which would mean putting the V-Wing in the Interceptor slot.
True, especially since outside of the Millenium Falcon, the most Lore Accurate rebel landing craft is just a stolen Inperial Landing craft. Having "Hero Ships" would've been even better though. Falcon for the Rebels, TIE Advanced for the Empire, the Naboo strike fighter for Clones, and Slave 1 for the Droids.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Because it was used by a hero of the republic to perform heroic acts, and it was either that, the already present Jedi Starfighters, or Padme's Space Yacht. In current Canon making the V-Wings the interceptors, adding Y-Wing Bombers, and making Jedi Starfighters the Hero Ships would make more sense though.
@@RorikH So? It's not even a superfighter, the N-1. They only worked that way in stuff like Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader for game funsies... I swear, The Book of Boba Fett onwards grossly made that good yet vain ship way more attention than it deserves.
For the record, another odd V-Wing detail is that its wings fold. 90% sure that in canon V-Wings dont land like that (2017 BF2 is my source, we see them land differently)
IIRC the torrent was going to be in BF2 originally along with the B wing but technological/engine/time issues prevented , i think that resulted in some of the end decisions. There was a bunch of stuff like that there were cut some in various stages like the fully complete SSD that was to be featured in some way.
I was under the impression that the Clones' Rapid Aging being a *long-term* problem was really something that Legends had committed to by the time this game came out: obviously them being *created* at double-speed was a plot-point in Attack of the Clones, but my understanding was that nobody really broadened that out into making the clones feel like they were just made to be discarded like that until the Republic Commando Novels, at which point it became something of a mainstay of how Legends Continuity depicted the clones post-Revenge of the Sith. Battlefront 2 pre-dates that, and if we assume that the clones age normally after reaching fighting age, they would be fighting in the Original Trilogy in maybe their 50s, as Rex does, which makes them Old Soldiers, inevitably going to be retired, but not outside the realm of possibility.
In the case of the 501st being on Mygeeto and Felucia, I believe they were assigned there to assist the main clone legion, rotating from one battlefield to the next. Most likely, these were the early skirmishes of those particular campaigns before order 66 came down. As for Kashyyyk and Utapau, I believe they should not have been present. Unless they swapped out their armor to match the befitting unit.
The one that always bugged me as a kid was the Rebel Alliance carrying over the LAAT Gunship from the Republic faction instead of hacing their own unique gunship. I know in the old lore the rebels used some old left over equipment from the Clone Wars but still.
The 501st to Vader's Fist made sense to me at the time, because i assumed Vader's Fist was a unit made up of clone commandos, who have normal aging process as opposed to the regular clones with rapid aging. What didnt make sense was the attitude that 501st was everywhere during like the last month of the clone wars which episode 3 happened. But if you remember the Felucia voice clip they were tapped off by another unit, it seemed like that one was placed just some random month in the Felucia sieges. For Mygeeto it was cool that they were tasked to aquire a crystal for The Death Star. if they were clearer in the narration it could have explained that they were 501st were all ARC troopers sent in to accomplish this mission quickly while commander Bacura's legion was doing the larger scope of warfare on Mygeeto
To me the main character of the 501st Journal was always a Dark Trooper phase 0 and that the main core of the 501st vets weren’t SPAARTI clones but a few cyborgs and later clones with the rest being normal humans
Odd tidbit that bothers me: how did a 501st trooper bounce from mygeeto to couracant to felucia to utapau to knightfall all in the span of the ROTS movie runtime? Like, that's about a day and a half to do all of that.
It's likely that the 501st journal is actually a collection of accounts from different members of the legion and not just the journal of one specific trooper.
For the TIE Fighter, I would have liked to have seen it get 2 AI wingman that fly in formation with you to balance out its lack of shields vs the X-Wing, and you'd have to destroy all 3 ships to get a kill.
I feel one thing if this game gets a literal remake, the story could be change so instead the 501th be the Forrest Gump of star wars, there could be a mission debrief, like in Battlefield 1 in operations mode
Much of the clone lore is the pre-Clone Wars one in here. There are no inhibitor chips, the clones knew they'll follow order 66, and them just being updated into stormtroopers made sense. There was phase 1 and phase 2 armors, so Stormtroopers are like phase 3, another step in military evolution more than a replacement.
around this time it was pretty common thought that the stormtrooper corp was still largely made up of clones, so the 501st journal following clones the whole time still fit at the time. Also we could just assume that the rapid aging maybe was meant to "wear off" after they reached a certain growth point, at least thats how I always saw it.
The CIS did actually have bomber types prior to the Hyena in Star Wars lore. In Battle for Naboo, and the Starfighter games, the Trade Federation utilise a bomber class referred to as the TF Bomber, so Pandemic could have used that for Battlefront 2.
Perhaps the V-Wing was used as a bomber similar to how the F-105 Thunderchief was a fighter bomber during Vietnam despite it technically being a single engined interceptor that doubles as a fighter in desperation and is primarily meant to be a nuclear strike bomber.
I like the segment on how the Republic Ships SHOULD have been, but since it was a tie in game, there was no way in hell you could NOT let people fly Anakin's Jedi Starfighter. 10 year old me though that was the coolest shit I'd ever seen. I also like the victory 2 frigate, but i also just like frigates 🤣 The Nebulon B is also a favorite of mine and its always frustrating that so many star wars games, even with mods, make it hard to use Frigates properly without them just being cannon fodder.
It just felt odd for me that the republic interceptor was a ship only used by Jedi, and the separatist bomber is general greivous’ ship. It’s like, weird, to me that these ships that are character specific are being flown around by a bunch of random pilots. It doesn’t really matter and I get that they wanted to connect it to Episode 3 more but it always just slightly irked me haha.
Also with the V-wing the fact that they gave it shotguns for some reason. Not only does this not go with any lore (afaik), but it doesn't go with any of the other three bombers either which all use heavy laser cannons. It is cool though
Can't remember where I read or heard it, but in legends Vader's Fist was comprised of clones, and Vader would take clones from other places to replenish his ranks. It was until the later years of the war, that nat-born troopers started joining.
I totally forgot the torrent existed at the time. I also wish there were more phase 1 clone maps because at least the classes make more sense having a commander be an arc trooper.
I think it's pretty easy to rationalize the 501st still being in service as nepotism. I imagine Vader pulling whatever strings he'd need to, possibly even going as far as to have more clones commissioned. It seems like something that would connect him back to his life as Anakin that he'd irrationally hang onto, claiming it as needing an elite corps instead of the blatant sentimentality.
The Legends Stormtroopers Corps continued to manufacture clones until post Endor period (Sometime between 4-6 ABY) of the Galactic Civil War its just stop being exclusively Fett Clones in 12 BBY along with the Introduction of Normal Human recruits
The choices make sense when you realise the game devs had nothing to go on besides a vague story script and some visuals from the movie. Revenge of the Sith hadn't been out by this time, and even at this point a lot of the other video games and books werent considered canon anyway.
The rebels don't even have the cr90 Corvettes in this. The corrillian Corvette in battlefront2 was the cr80 Corvette that appeared at the end of revenge of the sith.
Id argue the story about the 501st still holds up, and they definitely would've gotten special treatment for, you know, being Vader's Fist. Even in current canon, i can definitely see Vader demanding the best for his clones specifically.
Great video, finally someone is seriously talking about nonsense that always bugged me in BF II even though I still enjoy the game. There are just so many things to mention but in case of bomber class for Clone Wars era, they could have easily used already existing material from EU that was even visualized. Republic could use Gunship Bomber (featured in Galactic Battlegrounds and Dark Horse Republic Comics) and CIS should have Trade Federation Bomber from Battle for Naboo or Starfighter games. Also B1 battledroid would be better choice for standart CIS unit since B2 should be much stronger with no option to roll!
That thumbnail just made me realize how cool it would be to customize your own skins and classes in matches. Clone commander uniform with elite blaster and flying that starfighter (V wing? Forgot it's name lol) is a perfect match.
From my understanding of the clone rebellion mission, I thought the empire chose not to have a whole army of clones but continue using the fett genome for exclusively the 501st. That does not break the lore. If not stated like that, that’s my head cannon at least
I have to say, I was not as much of a fan of the prequels before I played OG Battlefront. It definitely sewed the seed of the Clone Wars idea to me. Now I consider it the most interesting and exciting era of Star Wars hands down!
I had never considered your point about how old clones would have been by the end of the GCW. Imagine if the clone uprising on Kamino had Temuera Morrison narrate it as his last battle, then you spawn as a Stormtrooper and the new Imperial commander explains that you're tasked with putting down a disgraced group of clones from the 501st that refused to "retire quietly", they could even tell you outright lies that you know are false about the previous missions you went on, "they helped the Jedi, they betrayed the republic, they betrayed Anakin Skywalker" etc. Then you play as that new Stormtrooper narrated by someone else for the rest of the campaign. Would show just how cutthroat the Empire was, how little it cared for its soldiers and how effective it was at propaganda.
This guys been working on primarily a single mod since I was in elementary school and I’m 26 now. How do you not get burned out or tired of Star Wars or at least empire at war?
I don't think BF2 using a singular clone for the campaign up to the Battle of Hoth is too out there. Sure, a quasi-septuagenarian is surprising but seventy isn't _that_ old and one can still be quite mobile and enduring at that age, provided one has been consistently fit and healthy throughout life, the only detriment is fast-twitch capability.
I mean the Republic had the Y-wings first, they should have that as their bomber while V-wing should replace the Jedi-interceptor lore-wise, it’s only used by Jedi. Meanwhile the rebels should have the B-wing instead
They didn't know that was what it was. This game was made injunction with Revenge of the Sith and was made in a vacuum. The movie hadn't come out yet, and the devs had nothing but a vague plot line, some terminology and pictures to go off.
Are there any mods that remove the gattling guns and slugthrower effects from starfighters and weapons? I know there are some out there but I can't recall which ones they were.
I don't think there being Jango Clones with the 501st at Hoth is necessarily incorrect as the Kamino entries implies that Jango clones were created for the Empire until the clone rebellion. And even if that clone is wrong as long as any Jango clones reached maturity at some point after the end of the Clone wars they would be a around 60 at Hoth which is a lot more reasonable even if it is still stretching it a bit.
![POLYCAT - ข้อความรูปยิ้ม [Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lBhIgPGCgbI/mqdefault.jpg)
I always thought the “Clone Commander” for the officer/leader was a dev error and mostly thought they were just Clone Marine officers being transferred to 501st legion
With the clone wars expanded mod, when you play on mygeeto every class has the clone commander skin
@@passiondono*Galactic Marines skin
they already have marines in the space battles though
@@slothfulcobra Yup, Galactic Marines Lore Wise also does boarding actions too but I think they’re modeled After the US Marine Expeditionary Force. While the Space Clone Marines would be regulated to Naval ship defense and counter boarding actions
@@Crappy-1441 Galactic Marine are Marine Expeditionary Forces and the Space Clone Marine are the old Marine Detachment(MARDET) the USMC would provide for US Navy Ships from 1775-83 and 1796-2000 small units of Marines (50-100 men) for ship defense boarding and counter boarding actions along with LIMITED shore actions (one is what the Marine Corps became and the other it what the Marine corps used to be also what some global Marine Corps still are)
I had seen that the reason the clones look the way they do is that Pandemic had some early clone trooper concept art and was under the impression that all the clones in EpIII were going to be blue, and that the clone commander was the galactic marine. by the time they finished the game, the clones had much more work done on them in the flim
Yeah that's also why the Clone Engineer has the weird helmet they do as it was originally the helmet of a Clone Commander that was cut from the movie.
@@SOMEGUY7893 didnt commander faie war that helmet?
It's easy to forget that this game was built along side The filming of episode 3 and that Star Wars is not as set in stone as some fans believe.
@@davidcirovic8620Yeah but he doesn't appear in the movie.
Except they also mention that it was the 501st in every given location by name, so they didn't just choose the same design but also the same legion.
I think an obvious honorable mention would be the CIS having Droids get inside other Droids and operating them as vehicles. It's clearly necessary from a gameplay development POV, but it's still funny. I thought for a long time that the CIS gunship droid was a piloted vehicle until the Clone Wars Onderon episodes.
It's especially funny when you get a clone somehow hopping inside a vulture
@@Arnorian_Knight I remember justifying it as a kid by saying "oh, they just hacked the droids lol"
I kinda imagined the B1-droids like folding up and getting inside the bottom of the vulture ship or something. We see they can do that as early as Phantom menace
The Gunship might actually have been intented to be a piloted vehicle originally. At least the Snail tank, which appears in the same scene, was originally supposed to be one, as can be seen from deleted scenes from The Revenge of the Sith. However, since those were cut, visual dictionaries and other books referred to it as a droid, and that stuck.
@@Arnorian_Knight vulture is actually pilotable
Also the magnaguards have grenade launchers instead of melee weapons for some reason. Like, if they didn't want the magnaguards to be a melee class for a non-hero, they could have just replaced them with something else. Even just elevating the B2 battledroid to an elite class and making the default trooper a B1 with an assault rifle would have been fine. The B2 is unique enough as it is.
I always thought it was weird how the B1 wasn't the standard infantry trooper for the CIS.
Actually, the CIS marine unit is a B1 with an assault rifle and rocket launcher, isn't it?
Melee classes could also work. MagnaGuard with electrostaff, Wookiee Berserker with ryyk blade, Emperor's Royal Guard with force pike, and Clone Assassin with vibroblades.
The magnaguard is there because it's more or less a movie tie-in game.
I never minded this one too much since even in the clone wars cartoon we can see magna guards use other munitions instead of just the electrostatic. Watch the arc with grevious and kit fisto. There is a magna guard that just fires a rocket launcher
My interpretation of the Journal of the 501st was that it was always a collection of memoirs from various clone troopers in the 501st, I actually never thought about it being written by one individual; this idea is helped by the fact that they all had the same or similar enough voices, and similar enough experiences and culture, as well as the fact that it is titled "501st Journal" and not "CT-3928's / DescriptiveNickname's Journal".
The same inconsistency applies whether it's one or multiple.
My theory is that most of the 501st clones would end up becoming Dark Troopers. It's the only logical way that they would still be combat capable by the Battle of Hoth.@@CoreysDatapad
@@alexp5256the problem is clones are still super soldiers, and they were in legends and cannon still combat ready in the empire by the time of hoth, hell, even in cannon you have captain rex, a first batch clone that is combat ready during the battle of endor, much later then the battle of hoth, the clones can be a lot older then a human for there accelerated aging, but that won't mean they wouldn't still be a superhuman for that age bracket
Still prefer the writer being the same clone.
@@CoreysDatapadIf it is multiple clones, the later journals might be from younger clones, which would explain why during the GCW they have no issue killing rebels, despite the mention during order 66 that some clones might have "private, traitorous thoughts".
A topic I would love to see is Pre-2008 Clone Wars lore. Because Clone Wars lore before the animated series was very different. I am surprised no one can made a video on this yet.
Would love Corey to discuss the differing Multiversal fates of Barriss Offee, Adi Gallia, Even Piell, Quinlan Vos, Eeth Koth, and even obscure folk like Beilert Vallance.
There are quite a few channels on youtube covering that period (mandalore is one of them)
Before Tcw ruined everything lol
@@CalebMaupintime I have to strongly disagree.
@@CalebMaupintime I have to strongly agree ^^
In my head I had always just assumed what remaining clones there were. Were officers mostly in non combat roles, or phase 0 Dark Troopers by the time of Hoth.
Besides from the 501st that is how is how it was in legends- for the Kaminoan clones at least, think there were still a bunch of Spaarti clones
Well for the clone wars era clones at least because the legends Galactic Empire continued to use and manufacture clones along side human recruits with humans and non jango fett clone lines starting to enter the Storm trooper Corps following the Kamino Clone Rebellion in12BBY
i assumed in legends clones matured to 20 twice as fast but after that they aged normally. (So they would be 45 by time of ESB which should still be capable fighting age for genetically enhanced super soldiers with futuristic medicine.) Regardless, this is preferable to me instead of Canon where Filoni is having clones totally phased out immediately like half a year after ROTS so they cannot seem like bad guys who did the empires dirty work (also why he included the chips to make them victims).
also not a fan of removing the 501st as Vader's personal legion that still kept their blue markings and replacing them with the 1st legion thats mainly storm troopers. (but who knows bad batch has 7 episodes left i would totally cream my pants if we see 501st troopers with blue markings in the imperial era lead by Appo and Vader. And there are some disney canon comics where vader is serving with the 501st post order 66 but filoni has largely ignored pre existing lore even disney canon.)
@@jbelfort42069 Blame Filoni all you want but the show was 100% Lucas
inhibitor chips perhaps George signed off on that but bad batch where the clones and all the republic equipment are being phased out for nonsense plot device reasons, thats on Filoni.@@Bluesonofman
Tbh, I think the 501 journal can't be treated like a personal personal one. There is a greate example in real history in no. 303 Squadron during battle of Britan. It's diary was started by one of the pilots but was countinued durring the whole existance of the unit, even after it's creator was killed in action. The clone that was reading it could have been from the last legal clone batch, so he would be in "his" 40s
Ah, I still remember that browser game playing as the likes of Paszkiewicz, Urbanowicz, and finally Zumbach.
I had no idea such a diary existed for 303 SQN, I’ll have to find it!
There's an old fantasy series based on this concept (a military unit recording its history across multiple generations) called "The Black Company".
@@AverageAlchemist Ah, the basis for Bungie's Myth duology.
Well, I guess 501st being at every battle at once kind of makes sense now, if those entries were made by different clones.
This game has so many weird little design choices that make me think the devs (and honestly the filmmakers at the time too) really didn't know what this era was specifically supposed to be like. Because this game was being developed in conjunction with Revenge of the Sith, they were probably only given a one-pager and certain film shots, limiting the devs to take what they see and extrapolate it. This explains certain stuff like the clone commander being a galactic marine, Anakin being on the dark side, etc.
How about them making the 501st into storm troopers even though the clones have exellerated aging
Edit he mentions it near the end of vid
@@GrosvnerMcaffreythe clones having accelerated aging doesn’t change much. The clones were around 13 when the clone wars began but appeared as adults in their early 20’s. The 501st becoming the original batch of stormtroopers for Vader’s fist seems pretty logical
What doesn’t make sense obviously is the clone narrator staying in imperial service for the entire galactic civil war. By that time all of the clones would’ve retired and be replaced by normal stormtroopers
Does it, or is that just a satisfactory explanation? Frankly, there should be no mistakes no matter the era, as valuable and popular as the SW IP is.
@@GrosvnerMcaffrey in Legends the Empire didn't stop making clones until Warlord period of the Galactic Civil War following the battle of Endor (minus a brief period post Endor where Thrawn order clone production restarted but that ended just as soon as it started). Following the Kamino Clone Rebellion in 12BBY the Stormtrooper Corps when from being exclusively Fett clones to having multiple non Fett clone lines(along side the Fett Clone lines) and the introduction of Normal Human recruits into the Corps. With the 501st Legion remaining exclusively Fett clone until the Battle of Hoth(although its more likely that end following the Battle of Yavin IV when the 501st lost 2/3rd of the unit in the destruction of the Death Star and as such would need to be taken off the frontlines briefly to rebuild)
Anakin is on the dark side for the latter half of RotS, though.
The clone classes always bothered me more, since despite being the 501st, there's also the 21st Nova Corps, 7th Legion, 41st (for the scout troopers), and the purple 212th paratrooper that reminds me of 5th Fleet Security. Though presumably this was either a gameplay concession so that every class had a distinct look about them, or merely more of that movie tie-in stuff since they really wanted to show off Episode 3 and the stuff that's in it. That and the game was rushed so part of it could be a time constraint issue too, like they got to model some new stuff like the Rebel tank but didn't have enough time to make new models across the board where needed.
They where mostly going off concept art and the trailer. The 501st mostly exists because of this game.
Pretty sure the purple 212th paratrooper is part of mace windus battalion
The game predates the kids show and therefore all of this
@@totalCoolerUsername I'm pretty sure that Battlefront II predates it, but most of those clone units were first depicted in Revenge of the Sith and given names a few months after in things like the star wars insider magazine and toys not in The Clone Wars.
The V-Wing kinda came full-circle and now there's actually a ground-attack variant of it, and this is still canon under Disney. So Battlefront II's bomber V-Wing is one of the parts of non-movie lore that survived the Legends decanonisation.
While that may be, you want to know what else would've worked for the Republic bomber slot better than the V-wing? The Y-wing.
Yeah. The Y-wing. People often forget it was in both the Clone Wars and later on was the Vanguard of the Rebel bomber forces as their mainstay during the Galactic Civil War.
Redundancy isn't a problem if it *makes sense*.
@@Gamerguy8262008 TCW brought the Y-wing to the clone wars, it wasnt in any media prior to
@@Gamerguy826Pandemic would've had to be pretty clever to include the Republic Y-Wing three years before Filoni and co. made the Republic Y-Wing.
@@Gamerguy826your right why didn’t they just add a ship 3 years from the future before it was created what were they thinking
@@ToaArcani mean it was established in the lore even before we knew what the clone wars was that y-wings were ships from the republic era, same with Z-95s
My internal logic for the campaign was that there were multiple clones doing journal entries. I mean they were all clones so the voice is supposed to be the same for all clones
Victory II class frigate confused me very much as a kid. Though I never really consumed any EU media outside of a few Star Wars games I had (including the BFs), I enjoyed reading about the vehicles and things of Star Wars, and so I tried to look up this unique ship. But basically all I got was the Victory class Star Destroyer, which looked nothing like the one from BF2 and didn't even have the same classifcation. "Star Destroyer? what?"
I don't remember what exactly I thought, but I feel like it was something to the effect of "Perhaps the devs made a wrong (really wrong) design for this Star Destroyer for some reason" or something.
To this day I'm still confused as to just why it was named "Victory II class frigate." Like, was it meant to be a successor to Victory I Star Destroyer?
Uh... well, the Empire likes to use similar names. We have three or four Imperial-class repulsortank models, Imperial-II-class star destroyer, Imperial-II-class frigate, so why they can't made also Victory-II class frigate? Maybe developers thought sometimes someone will made Victory-I -class frigate, I don't know.
I think I just glossed over it as a kid. It's pretty normal for these games to introduce new things when needed (see also Galactic Battlegrounds), so I just assumed that the Imperial frigate and the Munificent-class frigate (which I didn't recognize) were original.
Opposite of what we're talking about here, but related - something that's lore accurate but always bugged me for balance reasons was the LAAT being the only gunship with limited ammo, just because of one line about being out of rockets in AOTC.
“We’re out of rockets sir.”
The funny thing about that line is that, while they may have been out of rockets for the missle tubes, they still had six other front facing guns that would have worked (the 2 chin mounted ball turrets, the two manned side mounted bubble turrets, and the two wing mounted beam emitter turrets), so that line doesn't even make sense since there is no way for every weapon on that larty to have run out of ammo.
I disagree about the importance of the story. The journal makes it clear that they knew about order 66 ahead of time. In the end, they had to betray the jedi that they had fought and died with. When the time came, they also clearly had feelings about it. They weren't mind controlled into doing it, they weren't forced to do it (at least not more than how a military normally works), and yet they did it. I also appreciated the perspective on being a stormtrooper. They just finished fighting one war, then all of a sudden there's another. I would be pissed too.
I think this this video lacks some context regarding the developement of the game and why some of the choices made by the devs make sense. And how it went. Despite the sucess of the game at the time it was a very bumpy road. And it was a stressful. LucasArts gave only 1 year of dev time.
Firstly, Pandemic devs were given early ROTS concept arts and scripts from mid 2003 to late 2003. They did not have access to any 2004 stuff. hence why a lot of stuff in-game doesn't match with the final cut of the movie itself (501st's blue shade slightly lighter than compared to the movie, inaccurate galactic marine texture and mesh, Aayla Secura having two lightsabers reffering to Derek Thompson's artworks etc.)
In an interview Josh Resnick, founder of Pandemic Studios noted that it was super difficult to get assets from Revenge of the Sith in order to build the related in-game assets.
Secondly, regarding the campaign: the campaign is indeed crammed because a campaign was never planned for this game. It was supposed to be a multiplayer-game-only:
"Another LucasArts employee remembers a particularly divisive decision made by executives for Star Wars: Battlefront II, a game that was already in danger of quality issues due to LucasArts only giving it one year of development time. “It was originally being designed as a multiplayer-only game,” this staffer recalls. “It remained that way for most of its development cycle. New people who came in after the game was in development basically said, ‘No, we’re not going to make money off of a multiplayer-only game, you have to put in a single-player campaign.’ Pandemic screamed bloody murder and said it couldn’t be done, but [LucasArts] said that they had to figure it out. Battlefront II’s producer at LucasArts basically had a breakdown bringing the game in, but the team made their deadlines and the game sold like crazy. It was probably a bad lesson for Ward to learn, because LucasArts was successful at doing something that everyone thought was impossible.”
www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/04/04/fall-of-the-empire-how-inner-turmoil-brought-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx
Yeah this makes a lot more sense after reading this. Game-devs always make choice based off specific reasons. I wish this video had been a little more in-depth regarding the development of Star Wars Battlefront II. Everything could be explained.
I don't know Corey much but I think he's mainly an Empire at War youtuber. He doesn't know much about Star Wars Battlefront II compared to communities like Gametoast.
I'm aware of most of this, but most of this video was already couching the criticisms in the context, and that's why I didn't bring up every single inconsistency. It's not particularly relevant to the topics actually being discussed if you go back and look at the topics I actually covered, except the galactic marine thing but that was already a minor side comment. But at the end of the day, the game is what it is, and that's what's being commented on. The V-Wing, Munificent, etc I don't believe were in the category of assets they didn't have reasonable enough info on to make different choices, for example.
The campaign being a last minute addition is basically included in the context at the end, but I've spent plenty of time talking about how it was rushed in other places as well (which is the cause of a lot of my biggest complaints about the game in general, which I'm pretty open about not liking much as a result). The lore issues I spoke about with the campaign wouldn't have had anything to do with dev crunch or resources, either, which is again why I focused on that. It was just so focused on RotS and the Clone Was that it was never really going to get away from that.
The lore it went in different directions with is a very different topic from the development difficulties, which is a much longer topic, and why I tried to avoid too much that was tied into that. That's like a 30 min video on its own.
Just so you know, the shade of blue on the 501st in the game is the same shade od blue on the 501st in the movie, it just appears darker because nearly every shot of the 501st is showing them at night.
2:06 - That's because the Galactic Marines/21st Nova Corps design was originally a commander concept art. The same goes for the engineer's helmet, the heavy trooper and the jet trooper. In fact, Gree's outfit is an evolution of said piece of concept art which was repurposed for the 501st jet trooper in BF2. The 501st sharpshooter is also the concept art for the 212th airborne trooper, which during productin was part of the larger "Utapau clones". Eventually they went with the famous orange markings for the 212th and those markins with the blue stripes were instead made part of the 5th Fleet Security, except in the case of the 501st sharpshooter. This game was developed alongside the production and post-production of ROTS so lack of communication between Lucasfilm/JAK Films, Lucas Licensing, LucasArts and Pandemic meant that there would be inconsistensies between what would be shown in the film, in the novelisation of the film, the comic adaptation, the junior novelisation, the video-game adaptation, BF2, the Republic comics, the Clone Wars Adventures comics, Clone Wars (2003), Labyrinth Of Evil and other Clone Wars multimedia project material/ROTS tie-in material. ROTS' pre-production started in 2002 right after the release of AOTC and a lot of stuff would change in the different versions of the script, the cut took some time to be finalised because they shot a whole lot of material, there's at least 30 minutes of deleted scenes that we have seen, plus a number of other deleted scenes we haven't seen yet, or deleted scenes that we have only seen in the ROTS tie-in material, such as the game, the novel and the comic. A number of the unused clone concepts from the pre-production/production of the film were repurposed for other projects like BF2, the ROTS game, the Republic comics, the ROTS LEGO line and Hasbro's ROTS line as well.
Honestly I always preferred that the BFII idea that the clones just followed through with order 66 without implants or whatever. I hated the implant idea in Clone Wars series, theyre soldiers first and foremost, literally bred to follow orders from birth. The line "did we have any private traitorous thoughts? Possibly. But noone said a word" I feel was a perfect explanation.
In the narration about the 501st during the empire days it is explained that they refilled their ranks with non-clones, so presumably they are old veterans who don't view these new recruits as good as their fallen brothers, so perhaps they have more of a command or training position than a boots on the ground role, the regiment exists but the men in it have changed
The 501st remain exclusively Fett Clones until after the Battle of Hoth (more likely the Battle of Yavin IV when the the Legion was reduced to a Third of its authorized strength by the destruction of the Death Star) also Legends stormtrooper corps didn't stop manufacturing clones until the post endor period of the Galactic Civil War minus a brief peroid under thrawn to refill the depleted ranks of the Imperial Military in 9ABY(The Corps was exclusively fett clones until 12bby following the Kamino Clone Rebellion where empire started other Clone Lines and start recruiting normal humans into the Corps)
I know its weird, but I've always had a soft spot for the Victory II Frigate. Probably some bias there since I played a lot of BF2 as a kid, but even now I really like the design -- probably one of the best non-movie frigate designs imo. The 'sword' shape it has looks really cool, and I'm particularly fond of the bridge design. It still evokes an imperial aesthetic but the fact its much closer to the hull almost helps to fix the common criticism of Imperial vessels always making their bridge big targets. I wish it was used more in the star wars EU but I can understand why its only made a few scant appearances outside of BF2.
It needs to be thicker, but yeah, wish it gets a shocking reappearance, even in a Multiversal storyline featuring a starship defense fleet using holdovers from other universes.
Something that always bothered me in Battlefront 2 was the fact that some guns just shoot skinny orange lines instead of plasma bolts
Actually the aging thing probably wasent talked about much when the story was drawn up. In episode 2 it was only said they had an accelerated GROWTH rate not they age twice as fast. So the oldest clones in the 501st would biologically 45 in this.
It was very heavily implied that they aged twice as fast because the segue into the talk on growth acceleration is them looking a batch of 5 year old clones that appear to be 10 years old.
@@rileymosman2808 In some of the old EU books like the Thrawn Trillogy they mention how towards the end of the Clone Wars they were able to grow them in months/weeks, I don't think that would have been viable if their aging continued at that rate after adulthood.
@@rileymosman2808Yeah, but the growth rate might not be a permanent thing or might not be at a constant rate.
@@scottthewaterwarrior That was done via a different cloning method.
@@x3tc1 Are you talking about the ysalamiri? Cause that allowed it to be done in days/hours. The nornal methods were still said to be very quick by the end of the Clone Wars, just not that quick.
For me it was just too show all the different Clone Armors from Episode 3.
And Pandemic used the coolest looking ones for the classes.
I've always loved the design of the Galactic Marines, so at least mods have that as an option for normal trooper. But I grew up with the Battlefront games so I didn't know a lot of these things weren't right until a bit later and I learned more😂
I think you vould have easily swapped the V-wing and the ARC-170.
That would be more fun, the 170 has multiple seats for rear gunner and crew chief or commander or whatever that seat above the pilot is for. I remember the lego model having bombs.
@@kimbertactpro9 right? I need a modder to do that.
@@lukerope1906for the arc? i think there's tons of it already, though it only adds more passenger
The marine being the skin for the commander and not the marine does bug me but I also think the only reason it was classified as a marine to begin with was for hasbro to make toys of it and they couldn't just make a snow trooper again
I mean cmon that's a snow trooper
wow its almost like imperial armor is basically taken from clone armor 🤔🤫
@@YumariYatasuka you would be correct in that that was the point of my comment
You shouldn't forget that the game released in 2005 and therefore was more connected to ROTS than any other Star Wars media which is why they decided to bring as much stuff from that film into the game.
I've always been of the viewpoint that the 501st Journal was a post-Hoth amalgamation of personal journals and official reports (some classified) dating back to Geonosis, created by the Jango-template Clones and formed into a semi-singular and linear narrative (probably with heavy amounts of Imperial editing) when they realized that their time was truly over - Between the Empire's shift towards non-clones, their usage of multiple templates when they did still supplement their forces with clones, and the degradation of Jango's genetic material. The story always seemed to have a retrospective tone to it, and when additional details both contemporary and afterwards are factored in (*knowing* they would carry out Order 66, even though even before TCW Brain Chips every other source had Order 66 merely being one of many contingency orders rather than a plan every Clone knew about, as just one example) it fits a whole lot better than "a single Clone fought from Geonosis to Hoth and survived it all, in a game where death and reclassing is part of the gameplay loop".
“Before clones got examined as characters”
It happened at least a year earlier with The Cestus Deception in mid 2004. Might have happened even earlier in comics, potentially.
I will always find the Clone Rebellion being more logical and fun reason for the Clones being phased out rather than simply budget. The galaxy is huge and raising an army of Clones on one planet costs pennies. Think of it. Thousands of worlds supposedly, with trillions of intelligent life. Easily affordable by taxes.
The game was made to coincide with Episode 3 and some choices where most likely made based on concept art and the movie trailer as the movie had not come out yet.
Yep, there wasn't any communication between the devs and the movie makers. They got given a very bare bones story plot and some visuals but nothing else.
Heard a theory that the clone trooper you play as in the 501st journals eventually goes on to become a Dark Trooper. He would probably receive some sort of augmentations to cushion the effects of aging and allow him to survive on the front lines till the Battle of Hoth.
I doubt this possibility simply because nearly every Phase-0 dark trooper hated what they were forced to become (because becoming a dark trooper was not a voluntary decision for the clones who became one) and because of the horrible things done to them, many Phase-0 dark troopers became depressed, went insane, or even committed suicide which resulted in the dark trooper project switching to droids with the Phase-1 dark trooper.
the coolest lore thing that this game did for clones was just say that they always knew they would betray the jedi, that’s what they were trained for, that’s why jango was specifically chosen for the template and that they made the conscious decision to execute all the jedi, honestly i like it better that way then the revised “inhibitor chip” that automatically makes all the clones evil for a little bit
Eh, yeah, but then at the same time it's also more tragic and fits with the theme of clones mirroring the droids
Agreed. It was always so bizarre to me that ppl felt the need to retcon more logical ideas just so they could have the clones be sympathetic.
Yeah just have a bunch of dudes with nearly the exact same brain pattern all knowing they are going to shoot the people that read minds on a daily basis in the face while constantly being around the very people who read minds on a daily basis many of whom are extremely suspicious about this army of identical dudes who look just like the bounty hunter they just killed.
There's no way this can ever go badly or need any sort of change or retcon!
And note: Battlefront II is the *only* depiction to have that "we always knew" depiction, every other one even before TCW had Order 66 merely being one of 150 contingency orders and not a very specific plan, and even RotS hints at far more control being put on the Clones than them merely carrying out an order that involves murdering children without a second thought.
That piece of lore, about the clones always knowing they were going to execute Order 66, is exclusive to this game. Every other piece of Legends media has it where the clones know OF Order 66, since it's one of the 150 contingency orders that all clones have memorized, but not that they are ever going to execute it, with many clones actually being shocked or surprised when they receive the order.
I don't see why the 501st's advanced aging couldn't have been fixed, there wasn't so much of this idea that the Empire threw the clones away in the EU. Furthermore, it could also be that the clone narrator is actually multiple different clones over time, and they were just reinforced with more Jango-template troopers as time went on.
After the Clone Rebellion mission the narrator does say “Though the 501st would remain pure, the rest of the army gradually became more diverse. We never liked the new guys”
But that's again just BF2's own stuff, which isn't really something other places mesh with.
@@CoreysDatapad The idea the Empire continued to use clones is throughout the EU. As I said in another comment, people like Jax and Kanos were supposed to be clones from new templates, and existing clones like Cody continued to be in service at least as late as 1BBY. This hardly conflicts with the fact that the Empire was also using standard recruiting practices.
I still think the writer should be the same clone. Just look at how the Disney Alt-universe effectively made sure Rex seems to take part on Endor, so having an old clone still be ready and waiting on fighting isn't far-fetched.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Be wary of the Old Man in a Young Men Game
Tbh actually within TIE Fighter the Maarek Stele Chronicles, there is mention of the Empire field modifying regular TIE Fighters in certain situations. So TIE Fighters having missile loadouts isn't that crazy, just not common.
Gotta love that game and its feelies. Take notes, hype failure Squadrons!
The clone narrator could be a Phase 0 Dark Trooper. The Empire promoted the idea to clones that by join the Dark Trooper program, they don't need to worry about the rapid aging anymore by becoming cyborgs.
The clones who became phase 0 dark troopers were not given a choice in the matter. They were forcibly recruited and ended up getting 70% of their bodies replaced, which in turn caused many of them to go insane or commit suicide since they weren't able to cope with what they'd become.
It's rather funny cause I believe in Canon, there is a V-Wing that had particle cannons and the ability to drop proton bombs.
So I guess a variant of the V-Wing managed to get into Canon.
Multiverse Theory sure struck again with the "In Spite of a Nail" trope there.
It's very refreshing to have someone make a video like this who actually understands the narrative and mechanical goals that developers have. Good video!
I mean the retired Clone Trooper could have been like an Officer or Senior NCO by the time of the Galactic civil war. I don't remember was the clones aging faster after reaching adulthood established at this point, or was it like with Spaarti Clones, which to my understanding, aged normally after being created.
As for replacing Clones with Stormtroopers, from my understanding, the Implication of George Lucas was to retcon all the Stormtroopers to have always been clones with Episode III, and Battlefront II was following that.
The Stormtrooper Corps was exclusively Fett Clones until the end of the Campaign levels set on Kamino where following the Clone Rebellion in 12BBY the Empire started Multiple non Fett Clone lines and recruiting normal humans
I don't think George Lucas tried retconning stormtroopers, he did multiple edits and we never got a Temuera dub in any of them. Also, they were still pretty human in BFII (voicelines) and other media did the same
I personally really liked the clone story from battlefront 2. I think keeping the same narrator in both the prequel and OT sections showed that, to the average clone trooper there really want much difference before and after the fall of the republic. It is my head cannon on how the clone troopers thought and why they followed order 66.
To be honest though I never really dug into clone lore.
As long as the lore isn't diluted by the presence of one Dave, you're A-OK!
Given the existence of Dark Troopers in the Galactic Empire roster i don't think it's too big of a deal that the clones in the 501st Legion (which have always been clones whether in the Empire or otherwise) are still in active duty up until the battle of Hoth. We don't know what specific role the clone narrator had at that point, only that he was present.
The idea that the 501st have always been clones under the Empire is basically just a Battlefront 2 thing.
With Battlefront 2 they made the 501st the last exclusively Fett clone unit in the Empire until after battle of Hoth(more likely after the battle of Yavin Iv since the 501st was reduced to a third of authorized strength with the death star destruction)with non Fett clones and normal humans being transferred in from other Legions or assigned to the 501st following the completion of Training
2:09 Alright so the reason for this strange mystery is that Pandemic Studios recieved Clone Trooper concept art & used many of the designs for Troopers. The Engineer is actually based off of the cut Clone Commander, Faie without his tunic piece. The Heavy Trooper design is based off of a earlier version of Bacara without any of the dark markings on his chest pad or small shoulder bell piece. In a loading screen & demo for Battlefront 2, you can see a "Clone Commander" with a bit of a different design, notably the face & boots, again they used earlier designs for some of these guys. The Sharpshooter uses a early blue design of the 2nd Airborne Company. The reason why the 501st standard trooper doesn't have leg striping is because of concept art & a earlier model. The Jet Trooper is actually based off of a earlier design for Commander Gree.
Story wise, it doesn't make much sense for the 501st to be in all the prequel missions same time. Not only are they traveling across the galaxy more then the average star wars story, it's also stated that they kill all of their jedi commanders. So either we're actually listening to multiple 501st veteran narrators, or in this continuity order 66 went a lot more differently then in the movies.
Or you could just deem them as a special ops division made for such extra work proceedings. Not unlike how other fictional groups like Operations Group Echo: Black Ops 9 and Ghost Recon do their necessary deeds.
And they didn't actually kill their Jedi commanders at all in the story. Where'd you even get the idea?!
I mean, I think having the 501st being on different planets at the same time works if it's just separate detachments of the legion sent on different missions. A detachment of the 501st being on Kashyyyk was mentioned in one of the Dark Horse comics, even though the bulk of the 501st would've been on Coruscant at that exact same moment. Really, the only planet where having a portion of the 501st just doesn't work is Utapau, since that was a strictly 7th Sky Corps operation, but every other planet is fine.
I can live with and look past the clones having different armor looks for each class. But for some reason, making the B2’s the default infantry class for the CIS irks me so much lol. I get that it would’ve made 4 CIS classes the same droid just reskinned but it was always jarring to me playing GC and just facing an army of B2s for the first half of the game until the AI recruited more classes.
I always disliked the B2s being the standard infantry, always felt it was a waste, would have preferred if they put in the shoes of the rocket troopers, beef up there arm enough to be on par with a rocketlauncher, and bam, the b2 is now special, and dosen't take up a special trooper slot so you can keep the magna guard and the droideka
At least it's therapeutic to Republic Commando game fans.
The 501st narrative completely fits in the Movie/EU lore. Idk what you're talking about.
The clones actively knowing that Order 66 was going to happen from the beginning doesn't fit with any of the other Legends stories. Everything else about the 501st journal works fine, but not that.
@@CloneCommanderCrater1102 The Republic Commando Novels literally say out loud everything about Order 66 lol. Clones were trained for all of the 150 orders.
Order 66 was well known by both the Jedi and the GAR.
@MandoMarsi Let me clarify. The clones know about Order 66, but they don't know that it was always going to happen. In Battlefront 2, the clones have been preparing specifically for Order 66 since their training.
@@CloneCommanderCrater1102 Oh, now I get what you mean but the 501st didn't know that it's gonna happen either. The 501st Journals reflect on the past.
@@CloneCommanderCrater1102I mean for Palpatine it was a gamble between Order 65 and 66.
Now 66 was the only order and a Secret one.. so boring.
Personally I thought for the 501st part that they're kind of like the USMC, they go in first and clear things out, get stuff done, then another unit like the army (or like the 212th, Galactic Marines) would move in and hold down the ground after the 501st left. I think this idea makes more sense too when you remember in the game the retired trooper says that they were directly under the command of Palpatine.
When I played the Classic Collection, for the first time after it being years since I played the originals, seeing the V-Wing as a bomber threw me off. I had to look up the originals to see that they also had the V-Wing in that role, but at the time the V-Wing was new to the story and fairly undefined. I think they should have put in a Republic Era Y-Wing as the bombers here and used the V-Wing as the interceptor, since it's a bit odd for a clone to fly a "Jedi Starfighter".
I kind of like the idea that the clones are biologically around 70 towards the end of the campaign. With the empire caring a lot less about the ethics of throwing battle hardened old men into combat. Vader in particular may have had a preference to keep his clones over fresh recruits. With the 501st possibly getting special treatment to slow down their aging.
I can imagine a scene where rebels fight off a 501st strike force suffering heavy losses. Then seeing the face of a heavily aged clone when pulling of one of their helmets.
The Republic used Y-Wings too, except they were covered up and not as empty as the later scavenged rebel Y-Wings. It was in the Clone Wars show so it's canon. Also why did Anakin and Grievous' ships become general infantry ships?!
This was way before the Clone Wars BTL-B was conceived
Unfortunately, TCW 2008 shouldn't exactly be canon in Legends. Wookieepedia sure muddied up that necessary truth all too sadly.
The Belbullabs may have been MagnaGuard craft, not unlike the P-38s from TCW 2008, while the Eta Actis craft being flown by the clones may have been a sneaky way to train them in flying TIEs after the Clone Wars.
Game balancing the Starfighters was always a peeve of mine. I did prefer Bespin - Platforms in the first game just for the reason of the Y Wing having actual laser canons
With the V-Wing, the game came out around the same time as Revenge of The Sith. They wanted it to visually reference the film at every angle, to make the player feel like they were fighting in battles they could see in the movie. Also, the BTL-B Y-Wing that the Republic uses wouldn't exist until the Clone Wars CGI years later. They really could have taken some time to keep the starfighter lore consistent considering how much work they put into every other part of the lore.
The pre-Disney Star Wars lore handled clone aging a bit differently. Their rapid aging was only until adulthood, which is why towards the end of the Clone Wars they could be grown in months/weeks instead of years.
I kinda wish game devs from different studios would have closely collaborated on those kinds of things. So from different games that came out at the same time or were in development at the time would have vehicles and Aesthetics crossing over with each other more for a more accurate and immersive experience, even if that's a little unrealistic. For the rebels things like the MAAT as a rebel transport or the Mark 3 Clone Armor for the early empire missions from The Force Unleashed would have been so cool to see in battlefront.
Could be worse. We might be getting the Disney Alt-universe nonsense of still including trash content like Battlefront 2 2017 into otherwise good content in the process.
Regarding the ARC-170 being a bomber, I believe Lucasfilm were insistent on Pandemic pulling from the movies instead of the EU where they could for Battlefront 2, whereas they got away with pulling more from the EU in the first game. If it had been a few years later, they could have had the Y-Wing as the Republic bomber, which would mean putting the V-Wing in the Interceptor slot.
I feel for the rebel dropship they missed the obvious opportunity to use the Millennium Falcon.
Ehh, getting tired of more Corellian freighters, and besides, how the heck are they supposed to be used as combat dropships?
True, especially since outside of the Millenium Falcon, the most Lore Accurate rebel landing craft is just a stolen Inperial Landing craft. Having "Hero Ships" would've been even better though. Falcon for the Rebels, TIE Advanced for the Empire, the Naboo strike fighter for Clones, and Slave 1 for the Droids.
@@RorikH ...Why would a local and performance overrated starfighter be a hero ship for the Republic?
@@michaelandreipalon359 Because it was used by a hero of the republic to perform heroic acts, and it was either that, the already present Jedi Starfighters, or Padme's Space Yacht.
In current Canon making the V-Wings the interceptors, adding Y-Wing Bombers, and making Jedi Starfighters the Hero Ships would make more sense though.
@@RorikH So? It's not even a superfighter, the N-1. They only worked that way in stuff like Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader for game funsies... I swear, The Book of Boba Fett onwards grossly made that good yet vain ship way more attention than it deserves.
For the record, another odd V-Wing detail is that its wings fold. 90% sure that in canon V-Wings dont land like that (2017 BF2 is my source, we see them land differently)
Correct, the wings should fold forwards like a pair of scissors rather rotating downward
IIRC the torrent was going to be in BF2 originally along with the B wing but technological/engine/time issues prevented , i think that resulted in some of the end decisions. There was a bunch of stuff like that there were cut some in various stages like the fully complete SSD that was to be featured in some way.
I was under the impression that the Clones' Rapid Aging being a *long-term* problem was really something that Legends had committed to by the time this game came out: obviously them being *created* at double-speed was a plot-point in Attack of the Clones, but my understanding was that nobody really broadened that out into making the clones feel like they were just made to be discarded like that until the Republic Commando Novels, at which point it became something of a mainstay of how Legends Continuity depicted the clones post-Revenge of the Sith.
Battlefront 2 pre-dates that, and if we assume that the clones age normally after reaching fighting age, they would be fighting in the Original Trilogy in maybe their 50s, as Rex does, which makes them Old Soldiers, inevitably going to be retired, but not outside the realm of possibility.
In the case of the 501st being on Mygeeto and Felucia, I believe they were assigned there to assist the main clone legion, rotating from one battlefield to the next. Most likely, these were the early skirmishes of those particular campaigns before order 66 came down.
As for Kashyyyk and Utapau, I believe they should not have been present. Unless they swapped out their armor to match the befitting unit.
They should still be present. It's just that they should be divided into subsections at certain multi-ops scenarios.
The one that always bugged me as a kid was the Rebel Alliance carrying over the LAAT Gunship from the Republic faction instead of hacing their own unique gunship. I know in the old lore the rebels used some old left over equipment from the Clone Wars but still.
The 501st to Vader's Fist made sense to me at the time, because i assumed Vader's Fist was a unit made up of clone commandos, who have normal aging process as opposed to the regular clones with rapid aging. What didnt make sense was the attitude that 501st was everywhere during like the last month of the clone wars which episode 3 happened. But if you remember the Felucia voice clip they were tapped off by another unit, it seemed like that one was placed just some random month in the Felucia sieges. For Mygeeto it was cool that they were tasked to aquire a crystal for The Death Star. if they were clearer in the narration it could have explained that they were 501st were all ARC troopers sent in to accomplish this mission quickly while commander Bacura's legion was doing the larger scope of warfare on Mygeeto
To me the main character of the 501st Journal was always a Dark Trooper phase 0 and that the main core of the 501st vets weren’t SPAARTI clones but a few cyborgs and later clones with the rest being normal humans
Odd tidbit that bothers me: how did a 501st trooper bounce from mygeeto to couracant to felucia to utapau to knightfall all in the span of the ROTS movie runtime? Like, that's about a day and a half to do all of that.
It's likely that the 501st journal is actually a collection of accounts from different members of the legion and not just the journal of one specific trooper.
For the TIE Fighter, I would have liked to have seen it get 2 AI wingman that fly in formation with you to balance out its lack of shields vs the X-Wing, and you'd have to destroy all 3 ships to get a kill.
Stars wars fans not looking too deep into something that doesn’t actually matter challenge (impossible)
For real. These comments really show how the average Star Wars fan spergs put over trivial shxt in a video game from the early 2000s
I feel one thing if this game gets a literal remake, the story could be change so instead the 501th be the Forrest Gump of star wars, there could be a mission debrief, like in Battlefield 1 in operations mode
Eh, I have a soft spot for Forrest Gump plotlines, so pass.
Much of the clone lore is the pre-Clone Wars one in here. There are no inhibitor chips, the clones knew they'll follow order 66, and them just being updated into stormtroopers made sense. There was phase 1 and phase 2 armors, so Stormtroopers are like phase 3, another step in military evolution more than a replacement.
around this time it was pretty common thought that the stormtrooper corp was still largely made up of clones, so the 501st journal following clones the whole time still fit at the time. Also we could just assume that the rapid aging maybe was meant to "wear off" after they reached a certain growth point, at least thats how I always saw it.
The CIS did actually have bomber types prior to the Hyena in Star Wars lore. In Battle for Naboo, and the Starfighter games, the Trade Federation utilise a bomber class referred to as the TF Bomber, so Pandemic could have used that for Battlefront 2.
I'm surprised that the stubby munificent isn't an official variant
The Vwing being the bomber was weird to me when BF2 came out.
Perhaps the V-Wing was used as a bomber similar to how the F-105 Thunderchief was a fighter bomber during Vietnam despite it technically being a single engined interceptor that doubles as a fighter in desperation and is primarily meant to be a nuclear strike bomber.
I like the segment on how the Republic Ships SHOULD have been, but since it was a tie in game, there was no way in hell you could NOT let people fly Anakin's Jedi Starfighter. 10 year old me though that was the coolest shit I'd ever seen.
I also like the victory 2 frigate, but i also just like frigates 🤣 The Nebulon B is also a favorite of mine and its always frustrating that so many star wars games, even with mods, make it hard to use Frigates properly without them just being cannon fodder.
It just felt odd for me that the republic interceptor was a ship only used by Jedi, and the separatist bomber is general greivous’ ship. It’s like, weird, to me that these ships that are character specific are being flown around by a bunch of random pilots. It doesn’t really matter and I get that they wanted to connect it to Episode 3 more but it always just slightly irked me haha.
Also with the V-wing the fact that they gave it shotguns for some reason. Not only does this not go with any lore (afaik), but it doesn't go with any of the other three bombers either which all use heavy laser cannons. It is cool though
Can't remember where I read or heard it, but in legends Vader's Fist was comprised of clones, and Vader would take clones from other places to replenish his ranks. It was until the later years of the war, that nat-born troopers started joining.
I totally forgot the torrent existed at the time.
I also wish there were more phase 1 clone maps because at least the classes make more sense having a commander be an arc trooper.
Not only are the galactic marines underwhelming in bf2 2005 they aren’t named properly
I think it's pretty easy to rationalize the 501st still being in service as nepotism. I imagine Vader pulling whatever strings he'd need to, possibly even going as far as to have more clones commissioned. It seems like something that would connect him back to his life as Anakin that he'd irrationally hang onto, claiming it as needing an elite corps instead of the blatant sentimentality.
The Legends Stormtroopers Corps continued to manufacture clones until post Endor period (Sometime between 4-6 ABY) of the Galactic Civil War its just stop being exclusively Fett Clones in 12 BBY along with the Introduction of Normal Human recruits
The choices make sense when you realise the game devs had nothing to go on besides a vague story script and some visuals from the movie. Revenge of the Sith hadn't been out by this time, and even at this point a lot of the other video games and books werent considered canon anyway.
You gotta show pictures of what youre talking about I can't be furiously searching wookiepedia the whole time
oh yeah.. i had completely forgotten that the Empire frigate is a ship made up for this game. well... its kinda cool design anyways so.
8:34 They were right, we didn’t care because we liked the campaign so damn much! 🤣
The rebels don't even have the cr90 Corvettes in this. The corrillian Corvette in battlefront2 was the cr80 Corvette that appeared at the end of revenge of the sith.
Could have been worse. They may have been using the Assassin-class from the Star Wars: X-Wing games.
Id argue the story about the 501st still holds up, and they definitely would've gotten special treatment for, you know, being Vader's Fist. Even in current canon, i can definitely see Vader demanding the best for his clones specifically.
Great video, finally someone is seriously talking about nonsense that always bugged me in BF II even though I still enjoy the game. There are just so many things to mention but in case of bomber class for Clone Wars era, they could have easily used already existing material from EU that was even visualized. Republic could use Gunship Bomber (featured in Galactic Battlegrounds and Dark Horse Republic Comics) and CIS should have Trade Federation Bomber from Battle for Naboo or Starfighter games. Also B1 battledroid would be better choice for standart CIS unit since B2 should be much stronger with no option to roll!
That thumbnail just made me realize how cool it would be to customize your own skins and classes in matches. Clone commander uniform with elite blaster and flying that starfighter (V wing? Forgot it's name lol) is a perfect match.
From my understanding of the clone rebellion mission, I thought the empire chose not to have a whole army of clones but continue using the fett genome for exclusively the 501st. That does not break the lore. If not stated like that, that’s my head cannon at least
I have to say, I was not as much of a fan of the prequels before I played OG Battlefront. It definitely sewed the seed of the Clone Wars idea to me. Now I consider it the most interesting and exciting era of Star Wars hands down!
I had never considered your point about how old clones would have been by the end of the GCW.
Imagine if the clone uprising on Kamino had Temuera Morrison narrate it as his last battle, then you spawn as a Stormtrooper and the new Imperial commander explains that you're tasked with putting down a disgraced group of clones from the 501st that refused to "retire quietly", they could even tell you outright lies that you know are false about the previous missions you went on, "they helped the Jedi, they betrayed the republic, they betrayed Anakin Skywalker" etc. Then you play as that new Stormtrooper narrated by someone else for the rest of the campaign. Would show just how cutthroat the Empire was, how little it cared for its soldiers and how effective it was at propaganda.
This guys been working on primarily a single mod since I was in elementary school and I’m 26 now. How do you not get burned out or tired of Star Wars or at least empire at war?
I don't think BF2 using a singular clone for the campaign up to the Battle of Hoth is too out there. Sure, a quasi-septuagenarian is surprising but seventy isn't _that_ old and one can still be quite mobile and enduring at that age, provided one has been consistently fit and healthy throughout life, the only detriment is fast-twitch capability.
I know your occupied with empire at war but I would love to see mods for this game from your team.
A stupid itch I've always had is why the ATAT on Both has green heavy lasers instead of red. It's a very minor nit-pick, however.
7:37 the original lore was stormtroopers were clones.
I mean the Republic had the Y-wings first, they should have that as their bomber while V-wing should replace the Jedi-interceptor lore-wise, it’s only used by Jedi. Meanwhile the rebels should have the B-wing instead
3:18 It was a better choice than just making another generic ass fuck looking Y-Wing like they did in that dog shit clone wars show 🤣🤣🤣
I also thought it was weird in the ARC fighters how the back gun isn't used; its neither a copilot position or repurposed as an auto turret.
They didn't know that was what it was. This game was made injunction with Revenge of the Sith and was made in a vacuum. The movie hadn't come out yet, and the devs had nothing but a vague plot line, some terminology and pictures to go off.
Are there any mods that remove the gattling guns and slugthrower effects from starfighters and weapons? I know there are some out there but I can't recall which ones they were.
I don't think there being Jango Clones with the 501st at Hoth is necessarily incorrect as the Kamino entries implies that Jango clones were created for the Empire until the clone rebellion. And even if that clone is wrong as long as any Jango clones reached maturity at some point after the end of the Clone wars they would be a around 60 at Hoth which is a lot more reasonable even if it is still stretching it a bit.