Star Wars: Battlefront 'Outer Rim' Update Now Available

Yesterday brought a big Star Wars: Battlefront update, and with that updates gamers get access to a bunch of new stuff: Hutt Contracts, new firearms, and so much more. It's 8GB to download and is available to game owners now, and brings a bunch of hero changes, a whole slew of bug fixes, several mission changes, nearly a dozen multiplayer mode changes, a couple handfuls of vehicle changes, and more. The Outer Rim expansion is now also available to all Season Pass owners.

The Outer Rim update is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, all three of which have received the following changes. One of the big new features is the addition of Hutt Contracts, which give gamers a new way to get Star Cards and new weapons. Other new functions and content include a Spectator Mode for private matches, a Partner Icon showing up on screen at all times, a redesigned multiplayer menu, rebalancing teams between multiplayer maps, increased rank cap, and more.

As far as Star Card and weapon changes go, the update brings DLT-19X and DL-18 weapon available through Hutt Contracts, as well as the T-7 Ion Disruptor power. A bunch of tweaks have been made: impact grenades have an increased level of damage and decreased explosion radius, certain types of shields can deflect specific projectiles, some survivalist and bounty hunter bugs have been ironed out, there's a smaller blast radius and lower fuse timer for barrages, the ion grenade doesn't cause collision damage anymore, and many more.

This still only scratches the surface of the update — check out the full changelog below:

Additional Content/Functionality

Outer Rim: Now available for Season Pass owners

New Feature: Hutt Contracts add a new way of obtaining Weapons and Star Cards

New Feature: Spectator Mode introduces a way to watch Private Match games with a variety of camera angles and the ability to swap between players quickly

Multiplayer Menu: Redesigned the screen to facilitate players being able to get into a game mode more quickly and easily

Multiplayer: Teams will now re-balance when transitioning between maps

Teamplay Focus: New feature in which an objective can be highlighted by each player to highlight where players are heading; press X (Xbox One), Square (PlayStation 4), or E (PC)

Ranks: Increased Rank cap from 50 to 60

Scoreboard: Added icons for playing as a Hero, playing in a vehicle, and player ping

Scoreboard: Rearranged Score to be the first column represented

Scoreboard: Faded player row to signify when a player has been defeated

Combat: Added combat roll to non-Hero characters; strafe and double tap B (Xbox One) or Circle (PlayStation 4), for PC strafe and press Alt (can be rebound)

Partner: The Partner Icon will now be visible on screen at all times

UX: The currently selected Trait card is now shown in the deploy screen

Credits: Updated Game Credits list

Weapon and Star Card Changes

New Weapons: The DL-18 and the DLT-19X can be obtained via Hutt Contrats

New Powerup: The T-7 Ion Disruptor has been added to the powerup pool

General: Triggering a card right before death will no longer result in an effect not triggering and the card going on cooldown

Bodyguard: Corrected the Level 3 description from "Decreases explosive damage by a high amount AND blaster damage by a small amount" to "Decreases explosive damage by a medium amount AND blaster damage by a small amount"

Survivalist: Corrected the Level 3 description from "Health regeneration starts much faster AND replenish a small amount of health with each kill" to "Health regeneration starts faster AND replenish a small amount of health with each kill"

Bounty Hunter: Corrected the Level 3 description from "High chance to get a Power-up with each kill AND resets cooldown with each kill" to "Medium chance to get a Power-up with each kill AND current cooldowns decreases with each kill"

Bounty Hunter: Modified drop chances and cooldowns – Level 1: 25% Drop chance, Level 2: 50% Drop chance, & Level 3: 50% Drop chance AND 75% cooldown on each kill

Shields: Personal Shield, Squad Shield, & the Blaster Cannon will now deflect and absorb most forms of projectiles; exceptions being the Cycler Rifle, Scatter Gun & Proximity Bomb

Shields: When Personal Shield is active, the player is unable to fire weapons and throw grenades, but can still deploy droids, turrets, & call in Heroes and vehicles

Bowcaster: Updated damage to be consistent across all 3 charge levels – Projectile damage is now 40, Explosion damage is now 33, & the Explosion radius is now 2m

Bowcaster: Lowered max hold time from 5 to 3s

Bowcaster: Now properly goes on cooldown when firing a shot and then quickly entering a turret

Barrage: Lowered fuse timer from 2-2.25 to 1-1.5s

Barrage: Decreased inner explosion radius from 3 to 2m

Impact Grenade: Increased damage from 90 to 100

Impact Grenade: Decreased explosion radius from 2.25 to 2m

Ion Grenade: No longer deals collision damage

Flashbang Grenade: Added a screenshot component to give it an extra disorienting effect

Scan Pulse: Cooldown time increased from 10 to 18s (normal) and 8 to 16s (upgraded)

DL-44: Damage decreased from 19 to 13 at a ranges greater than 40m

Powerups: Deployed Droids and Turrets will now self-destruct after 20s when the owner is defeated

Blaster Cannon: Kills will now count towards leveling Trait Cards

Blaster Cannon: No longer takes splash damage from its own shots

E-Web: Players now correctly take damage when right up against the barrel of the gun

Viper Probe & R5-D4 Droid: Spawn protection decreased from 2 to 0.5s

R5-D4: Now shows the correct health bar color for both teams

Smart Rocket: No longer fires from the center of the player camera, now from the barrel of the weapon

Vehicle Turret: Destroying this will now properly grant you score

Jump Pack: Cooldown lowered from 25 to 22 (normal) and from 20 to 17 (upgraded)

Vehicle Changes

T-47 Airspeeder: Now properly explodes when hitting the ground after a player ejects

T-47 Airspeeder: During Walker Assault it is no longer possible to switch Tow Cable targets during the Tow Cable event

Speeder Bike: Kills with the cannon are now properly displayed

Speeder Bike: No longer takes damage when just outside the edge of the Orbital Strike boundary

AT-ST: No longer takes damage from fire

AT-ST: Changed the max pitch on the grenade launcher

Millennium Falcon & Slave I: Now are immediately destroyed when crashing into the ground while in 1st Person view

DF-9: Laser fire is now visible when angling the turret up

Y-Wing: Players are now properly notified if they are killed by a Y-Wing

Multiplayer Game Mode Changes

General: Misc spawning improvements across various map & mode combinations

General: Princess Leia's Honor Guard and Emperor Palpatine's Shocktroopers are limited to only 2 spawns during the Heroes vs. Villains and Extraction Game Modes

General: Players no longer instantly die during vehicle deployment after having taken damage that would kill them prior to the transition

Fighter Squadron: Games will no longer end in a draw when a player that crashes into the ground would have awarded the winning points

Fighter Squadron: Vehicles of equal size will now both be destroyed when colliding regardless if one vehicle is shielded

Hero Hunt: Redesigned the way in which the new Hero is selected, now the top 3 damage dealers have a chance to be the next Hero – Spin the Wheel!

Blast: Re-added Sulphur Fields back into the Blast map rotation

Drop Zone: Altered player count from 16 to 12

Mission Changes

Survival: Stars earned in the Survival in the Ice Caves and Rebel Depot Missions now count towards your total in the social hub

Survival: Zoom now functions properly on all maps

Survival: The AT-ST during Wave 4 on Hoth will now properly spawn in

Split Screen: Player 2 can now see the health of Player 1's deployed turret

Split Screen: Player 2's Scan Pulse now highlights enemies as expected

Hero Battles: Friendly AI tokens will now properly award points to the enemy team during Solo Play

Battles: Losing a life in offline Battles is now correctly tracked when winning

Hero Changes

General: Fixed inconsistencies with blocking blaster fire between active and passive blocking for Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, & Emperor Palpatine

General: When blocking blaster fire modified with Explosive Shot or Ion Shot, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader now deflect and reflect Explosive Shots or Ion Shots back

General: Heroes can no longer fire their weapon while melee'ing

Darth Vader: Increased health from 1500 to 1650

Darth Vader: Block ability time increased from 4 to 8s

Darth Vader: Decreased cooldown of Lightsaber Throw from 7 to 6s

Darth Vader: Increased distance of Lightsaber Throw by 3m

Luke Skywalker: Decreased health from 1000 to 925

Luke Skywalker: Slightly decreased running speed

Boba Fett: Increased the range at which his blaster damage starts to drop off from 30 to 45m

Boba Fett: Increased the range at which blaster damage is at the low end from 60 to 75m

Misc. Bug Fixes

General: Lighting, textures, audio, user interface, text, and collision fixes

General: Crash fixes

General: Partner and Party connection fixes

Map: Removed erroneous Stormtroopers outsider of the playable area from Heroes vs. Villains on Twilight on Hoth

Achievement / Trophey: Updated text of Ackbar's Elite to state "Complete any survival mission on Master without spending a life"