[V]ehicle-based levels have been completely reworked for LEGO Star Wars II. In vehicle-based stages, the vehicles themselves are no longer on "rails" and players can roam freely throughout the level as they would any other level of the game. It was important to the team to really overhaul vehicle usage from LEGO Star Wars to LEGO Star Wars II and give the player the same sense of freedom and exploration that they had in non-vehicle levels in the first game.

Secondly, vehicle levels also now support true free play, so the player will have the ability to go back and re-create all of the great action from the Original Trilogy movies with whatever vehicle they choose to use. If you want to do the trench run in the Millennium Falcon, or even on a landspeeder, you now can. This is a really tremendous addition to the game and adds loads of replay value to the vehicle levels.

The third exciting addition - and even the fourth -- is that vehicles and creatures will appear throughout the game that the player can enter/exit or mount/dismount at will and use however they want. The line between what a vehicle and non-vehicle level is has been blurred. In levels that might traditionally have been non-vehicle, the player will now have the opportunity to enable and use vehicles and creatures to further their progress or to just to explore and have fun.

Any non-droid character will be able to ride any creature and pilot any vehicle, so the player will have the chance to, say, have Lando Calrissian ride a tauntaun or Leia pilot an AT-ST.

The Death Star Attack level is a good example of a vehicle-only map and how different they are from the first game. In the level, the camera is positioned at a high angle, giving the player a wide view of the area. Starting off flying your X-wing over the surface of the Death Star, players can explore various pathways that lead to different areas, with the ultimate goal of progressing toward the end of the level. If there's an area within the level that you want to go back and explore, you can now do so! That simply was not possible in the original LEGO Star Wars.

Like in the non-vehicle levels, some areas will only be accessible with certain vehicles. As the player collects more vehicles, they can return to any level in the new vehicle Free Play mode and switch vehicles on the fly, just like switching characters.