Star Wars: Battlefront II – Where are the Latinx Characters?

One of my favorite games on Playstation 4 is Star Wars: Battlefont II.  It is a first-person shooter that features its own exclusive story – one that is considered canon within the Star Wars Universe. What made this game so attractive was that it was a follow-up story to the novel by Christie Golden, called Inferno Squad, which introduces an elite special forces team of storm troopers led by Iden Versio.

Iden Versio is modeled after actress Janina Gavankar, who also voices the character in both the game and audio book. She has quickly become a fan favorite and the object of cosplay. As a woman of color, her presence adds major playing value for me. Additionally, I absolutely love the idea of playing this story mode from the perspective of the Empire. However, despite all the fun, what is sorely lacking in this game are the heroes that I want to see.

Battlefront II sounds cool, with all the features and options to play iconic heroes…unless you really wanted play to Poe Dameron or Cassian Andor. Actually, let me correct that: Poe Dameron’s ship is in the game, so you can play around in the ship and pretend you are him.

I bring this up because representation in Star Wars matters, right? After all, they have a South Asian woman on the cover of the game, which is a big deal. One of the upgrades to Battlefront II was the added skin tones to background soldiers and officers, like they did in the first game. So it stands to reason that having more people of color – particularly Latinx characters – would make sense. I mean, Finn wasn’t in the original version of the game (Lando was, though come on, that’s to be expected), but was later introduced as a part of a season one DLC release to help promote The Last Jedi in December. It’s clear that they understand, to some extent, the value of implementing characters of color. 

I think there is something to be said about where the game developers at DICE spent much of their time. It’s apparently real simple to add the same cast of characters without giving any real thought to the overall tone of inclusion. For the developers to skip the appearance of Poe Dameron, who is one of three main characters in the new Star Wars film, is just lazy. Sure, we can fly in his ship, but we can also fly Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing and still have the option to play him as a Jedi. We’re also given two versions of the Millenium Falcon (because one version isn’t good enough). If there’s room for all this, then there’s certainly room for Poe. 

What we find is that diversity and inclusion in gaming faces the same issues as any other form of entertainment. It is something you can see in posters, but apparently hard to produce in actual gameplay. Look, the original Star Wars trilogy was not a bastion of diversity, but as this universe grows with more movies, animated series, and comic books – all showing various level of inclusion – there should be very little reason why Battlefront 2 would not have Poe Dameron as a playable character.

Which bring us to season two, which was just announced on May 3rd just six months after season one. To no one’s surprise, it is The Han Solo season. Does this mean we get an Atlanta version of Lando Calrissian? Who knows, but I will tell you what we won’t get: better overall representation in Battlefront II, which could bring lost players back to this platform.

About the Author

Anthony Otero is a two-time novelist and a recent contributor to the Puerto Rico Strong anthology. He is also the newest member of the BlackComicsChat podcast.