Star Wars Battlefront's new Battle Station mode will let you blow up the Death Star

EA announced today that the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront expansion Death Star will add a new mode to the game called Battle Station that will let players do battle in deep space for the first time.

Battle Station will play out across three unique phases, each with its own objective. In the first phase, squadrons of X-Wings and A-Wings must destroy TIE Fighters and Interceptors defending an Imperial Star Destroyer so that Y-Wings can come in and soften up its defenses. Once that's done, the Rebel fighters will move to attack the big ship's weak points in order to bring it down.

Phase two moves to a ground assault of sorts, as Rebel troopers launch a raid on the Death Star itself in order to extract a “priority droid.” This is where Chewbacca and Bossk, the expansion's new heroes, will come into play. Once the droid is out, it's on to phase three: Blowing it all up! Players will actually have the opportunity to get behind the Red-5 stick as Luke Skywalker, to run the trenches and pop the big balloon.

EA hasn't released a trailer but Ridble Videogiochi posted a video from the Gamescom floor that includes footage of people playing it. It looks pretty good: Not as complex as the great X-Wing or TIE Fighter sims, obviously, but a nice break from all the running-and-gunning on planetary surfaces. It's called Star Wars for a reason, right?

The Death Star expansion is set to go live sometime in September. Details are up at the Star Wars Battlefront blog.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.