As it turns out, you don’t have to wait for Star Wars Battlefront to fully install before you can start playing. Now that the sci-fi shooter is available on Xbox One through EA Access, it’s been discovered that you can play a special Darth Vader-themed mini-game after just a portion of the game (below 20%) has installed.
In the mini-game, you play as the evil Sith Lord and have only one job: kill all the Rebel scum. The mission is set inside of a Rebel hangar on Tatooine. Waves of Rebel enemies come from every direction and you can use various Vader’s various abilities (Force choke, lightsaber-throw, heavy attack, etc) to hold them back. A small team of Imperial soldiers are at your side to help out as needed.
A Rebel kill count is shown at the top of the screen, but, at least in my experience, it stops tracking how many kills (called “Defeats” in Battlefront) after 99. Poor, poor Rebels. The mini-game is effectively a tutorial for Vader and his moves, which you’ll want to get a hold of before jumping into the full game.
Eurogamer captured some footage of this Battlefront mini-game, which you can see here.
Battlefront launches on November 17 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Xbox One owners with an EA Access membership, however, can start playing right now. In other news, DICE has released a patch for the game that tweaks spawn times and vehicle behavior, among other things.