Here's a first proper look at Obi-Wan Kenobi and the planet of Geonosis ahead of their arrival in Star Wars Battlefront 2 next Wednesday, 28th November.

Geonosis is the planet where the battle takes place at the end of Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, the one with loads of Jedi in it. That was really exciting at the time - we hadn't seen Jedi fight in those numbers before. It's also where Count Dooku chops Anakin's hand off (planting a seed of inspiration for later life) and old bogey-face Yoda wades in, jumping and spinning an awful lot. That was also quite exciting - we hadn't seen him fight before.

That whole sequence from the film looks ropy now, because of the aging CGI. Actually, compare it to Star Wars Battlefront 2 and the game looks better!

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Lucasfilm has shut down Apeiron, the ambitious Unreal Engine 4 remake of BioWare's classic role-playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

"It's with a great sadness that I'm posting today," project leader Taylor Trotter wrote on Twitter. "I recently received a letter from Lucasfilm instructing Poem [Studios, the team behind the remake] to end production on Apeiron. After a few days, I've exhausted my options to keep it afloat; we knew this day was a possibility. I'm sorry and may the Force be with you."

Trotter posted a picture of the Lucasfilm letter.

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Video game boxes will soon get an in-game purchases warning.

PEGI (Pan European Game Information) said it will start to include the new content descriptor icon for physical releases of video games to help inform parents prior to a purchase about the potential for in-game spending.

This descriptor will be applied to all games that offer the option to buy digital goods with real currency, and will start appearing on physical releases towards the end of this year. This is a somewhat vague phrase that doesn't distinguish between the likes of DLC expansions and microtransactions or loot boxes, for example, but it's a start.

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Veteran EA exec Patrick S derlund is to leave the publisher after nearly two decades.

A familiar face during EA press conferences, the towering Swedish giant has held numerous senior positions in the company over his long tenure - most recently as its chief design officer.

Before all that, S derlund was previously CEO of DICE, the Battlefield, Star Wars Battlefront and Mirror's Edge studio which EA bought back in 2006, which is when S derlund transferred onto EA's own management team.

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Another of BioWare's old-guard has left the building. This time it's James Ohlen, lead designer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins, and director of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Ohlen leaves BioWare after a staggering 22 years.

"After 22 years I have retired from BioWare," Ohlen announced on Twitter. "I've loved my time with Anthem, Star Wars, Dragon Age and Dungeons and Dragons. But I need to take a break from the industry and work on something a little smaller and more personal.

"The most fun I've ever had at BioWare was as the lead designer on Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights. I've been a D&D fanatic since I was 10 years old and I want to be a part of it again."

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Star Wars fans, EA has found, all want to be the number one Star Wars fan.

The company has done extensive research into the motivation of Star Wars fans, EA's Jade Raymond said during a presentation at the Develop conference in Brighton this morning, and found that the number one motivating factor for fans to engage with anything Star Wars related - including video games - is to expand their knowledge of the Star Wars universe and "lord it over their friends".

Raymond, who manages EA's Motive studios as well as works on the overarching Star Wars video game strategy at the company, was asked what makes a great Star Wars video game.

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Last week, Emperor Sheev Palpatine - Darth Sidious to his friends - was pulled from Star Wars Battlefront 2. He was too powerful! So powerful, in fact, he could kill people through walls.

A week on and there's no word on Palpatine's return, as players continue to enjoy a period of galactic calm without Palpy being able to send lightning around corners.

Interestingly, EA killed off the Emperor using a "kill switch" - a piece of code in the game which can be activated server side to instantly vanish a troublesome character should something go awry. Think Order 66, but over the internet.

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DICE has shared more information on some of the new features coming to Star Wars Battlefront 2 later this year, including a map and characters inspired by The Clone Wars.

This summer sees the introduction of a new squad system, enabling players to team up more easily with friends, a new starfighter mode focussed around dogfighting with hero ships, plus a new "large-scale multiplayer sandbox mode" - in which players capture command posts, attacking and taking out ships.

Additionally, once Battlefront 2's current Han Solo season is out of the way, DICE will begin ushering in new goodies themed around The Clone Wars. There'll be a new map based on the planet Geonosis, which DICE describes as the "largest level ever built for Battlefront", and there'll be new heroes and villains too.

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There's a new map and mode coming to Star Wars Battlefront 2 next week, June 12th, as part of its currently ongoing Han Solo-themed season.

Battlefront 2's new map takes form of the Coaxium Mines of Kessel, unsurprisingly located on the planet Kessel (of "12 parsecs" fame). "It's not for the faint-hearted though", explains EA, "conditions are harsh, and the Galactic Empire is heavily invested in the local supply of the highly sought after coaxium."

Several modes will be available to play on the new map: Arcade, Blast, Hero Showdown, Heroes vs Villains, and Extraction mode, which makes its Battlefront 2 debut in the new update.

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Xbox Game Pass just got four Star Wars games: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2.

There's a lot to love in this collection of Star Wars titles, but my favourite has to be Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. BioWare's awesome role-playing game launched on the original Xbox, where I first played it, back in 2003 and features an awesome story as well as some brilliant characters. (BioWare had a really cool idea for KOTOR 2, by the way.)

But Star Wars The Force Unleashed is well worth a shot, too. LucasArts' action game introduced a new protagonist called Starkiller, who was supposedly Darth Vader's secret apprentice (this was all Star Wars canon before Disney stuck its oar in). Starkiller was ridiculously overpowered, which meant you could chuck scores of Stormtroopers about as if they were puppets on a string (the game used NaturalMotion's Euphoria tech, which Grand Theft Auto 4 also used, for its AI animation).

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