General Grievous joins Star Wars: Battlefront 2

DICE has added General Grievous as a playable Hero in Battlefront II, letting players assume the role of the quadruple lightsaber-wielding droid, defeated by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Revenge of the Sith.

In a community update, DICE’s Dennis Brännvall discussed some of the details behind the General’s design and abilities. Described by Brännvall as a “big guy”, he goes on to explain that DICE has “designed him to bring about fear, and feel like an overwhelming opponent in the game.”

As both a warrior and a general, Grievous' three special abilities revolve around a blend of power and tactics. “Thrust surge” sees the general lunge toward an enemy, stabbing with all four lightsabers, while “Claw Rush” enables him to scuttle quickly forward, and can be used for a quick retreat or to knock down opponents in your path. The way the general moves in Claw Rush is also genuinely disturbing, like some chittering hell-crab.

The final ability is “unrelenting advance”, in which Grievous spin two lightsabers to form an unstoppable blade wall, blocking all frontal attacks and causing damage to anyone caught by his blades. The general also comes with two different available skins, plus a third that’s yet to be announced along with his own Star Cards, voice lines, and victory poses.

The community feedback for Grievous has been generally positive, although some users have complained that the Thrust Surge hit detection is a little flaky, while others wish that his second pair of arms were on display more often.

If you want to add grievous to your collection, he costs 35,000 in-game credits. DICE's Ben Walke, who has been tweeting frequently about Grievous, has stated explictilty that “There is no real world money exchanging hands for General Grievous.”

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.