'Star Wars Battlefront 2' October Update Adds General Grievous - Patch Notes

Star Wars Battlefront 2 's big October update has finally arrived as version 1.21 on PS4. The sizeable patch adds General Grievous and the N-1 Starfighter to the game, while also providing some much-needed balance tweaks to existing heroes. The patch notes arrive courtesy of an EA blog post.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 October Update Patch Notes

NEW FEATURES

• General Grievous will be playable from Oct. 30. Grievous comes with three abilities: Unrelenting Advance, Thrust Surge and Claw Rush. One alternative Battle-Damaged appearance is available to unlock.
• The N-1 Starfighter has been added as a playable grunt ship on Hero Starfighters

QUALITY OF LIFE

• Certain Hero Star Cards have been reworked to allow for better Health regeneration for different Heroes
• Added a HUD widget that displays the status of the player's Squad members next to the mini-map

HERO HEALTH STAR CARD CHANGES

BOBA FETT

• Old Star Card Name: Information Sharing
• Old Star Card Effect: Reveal enemies to your allies for a part of its duration-
• New Star Card Name: Bounty Claimed
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Boba Fett defeats an enemy trooper, he regains 20 health. Whenever he defeats an enemy hero, he regains even more.

HAN SOLO

• Old Star Card Name: Head Games
• Old Star Card Effect: Scoring three headshot hits in a row without hitting any other body part will reset a part of all Han Solo's abilities recharge time.
• New Star Card Name: A Good Blaster
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Han Solo defeats an enemy trooper, he regains 20 health. Whenever he defeats an enemy hero, he regains even more.

LANDO CALRISSIAN

• Old Star Card Name: In the Zone
• Old Star Card Effect: Disabled overheat lasts longer when perfectly cooling the X-8 Night Sniper blaster.
• New Star Card Name: Easy Wins
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Lando Calrissian defeats an enemy trooper, he regains 20 health. Whenever he defeats an enemy hero, he regains even more.

KYLO REN

• Old Star Card Name: Bloodletting Frenzy
• Old Star Card Effect: While Kylo Ren's health is below 25 percent he will deal bonus damage with his lightsaber.
• New Star Card Name: Frenzied
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Kylo Ren defeats an enemy trooper, he regains 20 health. Whenever he defeats an enemy hero, he regains even more.

DARTH MAUL

• Old Star Card Name: Frantic Strikes
• Old Star Card Effect: Melee strikes will drain less stamina.
• New Star Card Name: Wrathful
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Darth Maul defeats an enemy trooper, he regains 20 health. Whenever he defeats an enemy hero, he regains even more.

CHEWBACCA

• Old Star Card Name: Wookiee Beserker
• Old Star Card Effect: Chewbacca's melee attacks are stronger and deal more damage.
• New Star Card Name: Ground Breaking
• New Star Card Description: Whenever an enemy trooper is defeated by CHARGE SLAM, Chewbacca regenerates 20 health. If it was an enemy hero, he regains even more.

YODA

• Old Star Card Name: Master of The Force
• Old Star Card Effect: When the UNLEASH radius is at maximum distance, unleashing it will deal bonus damage.
• New Star Card Name: Release The Force
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Yoda defeats an enemy trooper using UNLEASH, he regains 20 health. Whenever he defeats an enemy hero, he regains even more.

FINN

• Old Star Card Name: All Together
• Old Star Card Effect: The radius of UNDERCOVER TEAM is increased if two friendlies are affected.
• New Star Card Name: Covert Leader
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Finn defeats an enemy trooper while UNDERCOVER TEAM is active, he regains 20 health. Whenever he defeats an enemy hero, he regains even more.

CAPTAIN PHASMA

• Old Star Card Name: Only Pawns
• Old Star Card Effect: For every enemy Captain Phasma defeats with STAFF STRIKES its recharge rate will be increased for five seconds.
• New Star Card Name: Beat Down
• New Star Card Description: Whenever Captain Phasma defeats an enemy trooper with her STAFF STRIKES, she regains 20 health. Whenever she defeats an enemy hero, she regains even more.

CHANGES TO CLASSES AND SPECIAL UNITS

ENFORCER (WOOKIEE WARRIOR)

Made the below changes to the Wookiee Warrior Enforcer for better balancing:

• Lowered the speed multiplier when zooming to match the one from the Death Trooper.
• Reduced start and end damage per Bowcaster bolt.
• Reduced base health from 350 to 320 points.

HERO CHANGES

BOSSK

• Bossk's jump ability has been slightly adjusted for firmness.

KYLO REN

• Added scoring to Kylo Ren's Pull ability and fixed an issue where using the ability on Hero characters would not track progress for the milestone "MAKE THEM COME TO YOU".

GAME MODE CHANGES

GALACTIC ASSAULT

• In order to improve the flow on Galactic Assault - Naboo, the Attackers on Phase 2 need to override only one door to proceed.

EWOK HUNT

• Fixed an issue with the Timed Challenge "HUTAR! HUTAR!" not tracking progression.

EXTRACTION

• Fixed an issue where the positions of best players in the End-of-round screen would show up in an irregular order. The player with the highest score will now be in the middle, and the player with the second highest score will be on the left.

HEROES VS VILLAINS

• Fixed issues that allowed multiple players to spawn with the same Hero in Heroes Vs. Villains. Among other fixes, the "Change Character" button is now immediately unavailable after a death to prevent this.

BLAST

• Reduced the size of players required to start a match of Blast from 10 to eight.

ARCADE CHANGES

STARFIGHTER CUSTOM ARCADE

• Fixed an issue where the AI Starfighters would fly towards and remain stuck in out-of-bounds areas.

SQUAD SPAWN CHANGES

• Adjusted the rules of spawning on squad members, so that Troopers and Specials can spawn on every character, except Boba. Heroes can spawn only on the Default spawn points.
• A score event of 100 pts. has been added when a squad member spawns on the player.
• Fixed an issue where Assault-class icons would appear in empty squad member slots when viewing the spectator screen.
• The occasional issue of the status of a squad mate being incorrectly displayed as available while selecting a class has been now resolved.
• Fixed an issue in which players in a party of at least four members would occasionally have no squad members to spawn on after a round transition.
• The spawn countdown timer now reads as "Spawn available in" and is visible only through the Squad Spawn screen.

MATCHMAKING CHANGES

• Improved the accuracy of being connected into a Clone Wars-era map, when selecting the Clone Wars - matchmaking tile.

MAP CHANGES

KAMINO

• Fixed some collision issues on Kamino that would allow players to hide with Boba Fett in a location from where nobody could reach or shoot him.

STARKILLER BASE

• Fixed an issue with invisible collision on Starkiller Base.

VEHICLE CHANGES

• Fixed an issue where an upgraded "Repair System" Star Card would not accurately accelerate health regeneration on Han Solo's and Lando's Millennium Falcons.

LANDO'S MILLENNIUM FALCON

• Fixed an issue where the "Elite Pilot" Star Card, would not increase the turn speed for Lando's Millenium Falcon.
• Fixed an issue where Lando's Millennium Falcon would occasionally not receive damage when attacked from behind.

GENERAL CHANGES/MISC

• The layout of the Hero selection grid on Heroes Vs. Villains, Hero Showdown and Hero Starfighters has been revised to make room for the addition of new characters.
• Fixed an issue where the Hero Details screen would not display the fourth Ability for Iden's TIE Fighter and Poe's T-70 X-Wing.
• Fixed some rare rendering issues (exploding character meshes) noticed when playing on PC.
• Fixed an issue where the appearance screen UI would occasionally show up in-game, if the player pressed a combination of buttons right after deploying in the game.
• Fixed a spelling error on the description of Palpatine's "Lighting Reach" Star Card.
• "FIRST ORDER AT-ST" is now capitalized in the Collection tab to be consistent with all vehicle names.
• Fixed an issue where the description for the in-game store crystal packs would not be translated in all supported languages.
• Fixed an issue where the in-game milestone pop-up would occasionally not get triggered when the user completes a Timed Challenge.
• Updated the description of the Timed Challenge "With A Strong Hand" to fit with the challenge's progress requirements.
• Fixed an issue where the game's sound would occasionally cut abruptly during gameplay and remain inactive until the game was restarted.

TEAM SIZE

• Implemented a limit in the difference of team sizes before a mode can start. This way, a mode cannot start with an unbalanced size in teams.

The maximum difference in team sizes are:

• Galactic Assault: four
• Starfighter Assault: two
• Strike: two
• Blast: two
• Extraction: two
• Hero Modes already require even team sizes.

The main feature of Battlefront 2's latest update is, of course, the addition of General Grievous as a playable Hero. Even though the character's existence in the game's datamined files has been known since the title launched last fall, this will be the first time players get to see what he's like on the battlefield. June's Solo season featured new looks for existing Heroes, but Grievous is probably the single-biggest addition to the game since Captain Phasma and Finn debuted last December. The N-1 Starfighter is a neat prequel-era addition as well, but it will only matter to the select few players still frequenting the Fighter Squadron mode.

As far as quality-of-life updates are concerned, several new Star Cards emphasize a meta where Heroes regain health based on kills instead of using specific abilities. This means you won't have to spam bespoke attacks to gain an advantage, which allows for greater flexibility in gameplay. The same can be said for the Squad changes as well, which offer less restriction to the types of troops one can spawn next to. It's possible this may lead to lopsided battle arrangements once it gets tinkered with, but DICE is keen to experiment before making that determination. On the smaller end of the spectrum, changed Galactic Assault requirements on Naboo make Phase 3 matches more likely.

Today's Battlefront 2 October update isn't exactly feature-rich, but it does include something fans have been asking for since day one. Grievous will be joined by Obi-Wan Kenobi in another update on Nov. 28.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 update 1.21 is deploying on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

What are your thoughts on the latest update for Star Wars Battlefront 2? Will General Grievous bring you back to the game? Tell us in the comments section!