Star Wars Battlefront II Review... This Isn’t the Sequel You’re Looking For

Post by KostaAndreadis @ 01:20pm 14/11/17 | 19 Comments

Star Wars Battlefront II proves to be more Attack of the Clones than Empire Strikes Back: a sequel that fixes some of the sins of its predecessor, but repeats mistakes, and adds in whole new problems. Our resident Star Wars expert (see: nerd) and Battlefield super-fan (also see: nerd) Nathan 'Nachosjustice' Lawrence brings you a truly in-depth, and comprehensive, review.

I’m a Star Wars Battlefront apologist. That’s the 2015 version I’m talking about because, obviously, the original Pandemic Studios Battlefront games were fantastic. When it comes to DICE’s reboot though, there were obviously problems. No meaningful solo experiences, a lack of launch content, accessibility at the cost of depth, questionable online networking decisions, and iffy balancing.

DICE’s Battlefront was by no means limited to this list of cons, but I loved it because when the stars aligned and it got things right, it was one of the best Star Wars experiences I’ve ever had. It helps that DICE is top of the class when it comes to visual fidelity and soundscape recreation. There’s no denying that Battlefront 2015 looked and sounded the business, and during the right set pieces, you could feel like a badass in a galaxy far, far away, be it as a trooper or iconic hero or villain.

For Star Wars Battlefront II, though, I was acutely aware I was going in with a lot less leniency. Why? Well, I was one of the few players (on PC, at least) who kept Battlefront installed until the final DLC drop. On PC, the community was effectively dead between DLC releases, and the quality of the DLC shifted between great and phoned-in. It was clear that only Season Pass holders were coming back during the two weeks of early access to try the DLC but, despite the new content, it wasn’t enough to keep the continually fractured community playing.

Click Here to Read the Full Star Wars Battlefront II Review

star wars battlefront ii review

Latest Comments

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notgreazy
Posted 04:08pm 14/11/17

So a comment by EA on reddit made reddit-history by becoming the most downvoted comment ever on the site.

Here it is:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/

The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.
As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the Open Beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we're looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily basis, and we'll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding, and of course attainable via gameplay.
We appreciate the candid feedback, and the passion the community has put forth around the current topics here on Reddit, our forums and across numerous social media outlets.
Our team will continue to make changes and monitor community feedback and update everyone as soon and as often as we can.

A good summary came be found here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/7cr3ec/ea_makes_changes_to_star_wars_battlefront_ii_in/
Official EA statement/comment:
https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/battlefront/battlefront-2/news/swbfii-changes-launch?utm_campaign=swbf2_hd_ww_ic_soco_twt_swbfii-launchchangesblog-tw&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cid=41287&ts=1510608860671

The result is EA reducing the in-game prices by ~75%. Hilarious. The backlash from the community, especially when people started calculating the real cost of grinding/buying the heroes, was great. They're going to do an AMA on reddit this wednesday. Can't wait!

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Steve Farrelly
Posted 05:45pm 14/11/17

What a cluster this whole thing is. However, in the wake of Disney's procurement of Lucasfilm and how they market their, well, everything, I don't really think any other games company other than EA would have fit the business goal. But all of this is at the absolute detriment of a premium experience. Baked in content, locked, with easy pay-to-unlock options is the sort of feature creep that is going to kill games, or at least mame them, in serious ways.

I know it's been happening for a while, but it seems super-prevalent of late.

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notgreazy
Posted 07:27pm 14/11/17

I haven't paid attention, what other games have this sort of s***** situation?

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Steve Farrelly
Posted 10:02pm 14/11/17

Evolve and Dead Space are two examples of games that essentially got canned because of it. Shadow of War also has it in there, and it's crept a bit into a few others too...

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Bah
Posted 10:18pm 14/11/17

The result is EA reducing the in-game prices by ~75%.

I read a comment that they made it harder to earn credits at the same time resulting in no net change, which if true is hilarious.

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Khel
Posted 01:00am 15/11/17

I haven't paid attention, what other games have this sort of s***** situation?

Just in the last couple of months: Battlefront 2, Shadow of War, Call of Duty, Need for Speed Payback, Forza 7, Assassin's Creed Origins (to a lesser degree, but it's still in there), Skyrim and Fallout 4 with their paid mods bulls***. It's depressing.

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Steve Farrelly
Posted 02:13am 15/11/17

Evolve and Dead Space are two examples of games that essentially got canned because of it. Shadow of War also has it in there, and it's crept a bit into a few others too...

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BladeRunner
Posted 07:04am 15/11/17

Gaming at the moment is in a sorry state. I won't be picking up Battlefront 2. Things have changed. Gaming has changed (for the worse it feels like), Star Wars has changed (for the worse) and Star Trek has changed too (For the worse). It really is like that scene from The Simpsons.

“I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was, and now what I’m with isn’t it. And what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.”

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ravn0s
Posted 09:18am 15/11/17

disney should have spread the star wars rights over multiple devs/pubs instead of just one.

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WirlWind
Posted 11:48am 15/11/17

I don't think I've bought a AAA title in years (unless it was like 75% off on steam and I was bored).

I think I'll put aside my gamer hat for a little while longer, hopefully there's another game crash soon to wipe the slate clean...

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notgreazy
Posted 12:39pm 16/11/17

The absurdity continues!

It will take 4,528 hours of gameplay (or $2100) to unlock all base-game content in star Wars: Battlefront 2

http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2017/11/it-will-take-4528-hours-of-gameplay-or-2100-to-unlock-all-base-game-content.html

The AMA can be found here if anyones interested:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7d4qft/star_wars_battlefront_ii_dice_developer_ama/

As we want to let players earn Credits offline via a more relaxed game mode, we needed to also find a way to make sure it wouldn't be exploited in a way that would impact Multiplayer. Because of that we made the decision to limit the number of Credits earned to stop potential abuse. We will be looking at data continually and make adjustments to make things as balanced as possible.
As for more Arcade, just like every mode in our game, we want to look for ways to expand it going forward. Unfortunately at this point we don't have anything to share right now, but know that we care about Offline modes.

Translation: we want you to spend money.

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Zapo
Posted 11:43am 16/11/17

I was going to buy this game but have changed my mind given the reviews and discovery around how long it takes to unlock heroes etc.

If this game was F2P then fair enough, but if I have to drop $80 for the game and then I can't play a heap of characters- well - F*** OFF EA.

I'm voting with my wallet here and will avoid it like the plague.

Progression systems should be fun, or kinda like a tutorial not f*****g paywall s***.

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BladeRunner
Posted 01:57pm 16/11/17

I was wondering why everyone was making such a fuss about the unlocks, now I understand why. EA is really trying hard to make people hate them even more than they already do. I can see the bean counters at EA drooling in anticipation at the money that they expect to be raking in.

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infi
Posted 02:40pm 16/11/17

hah, just play bf1 and have awesome fun all day and night for one low low price

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nachosjustice
Posted 02:56pm 16/11/17

By the way, if you want to know anything else (outside of my mammoth 4,500-word review... whoops), just hit me up and I'll do my best to answer it.

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Rdizz
Posted 11:46pm 20/11/17

I haven't bought a game from EA since battlefield 3, I love star wars, is this worth the buy? I have never played a battlefront game.

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Khel
Posted 11:33am 21/11/17

I'd say no, but it depends if you can stomach a super grindy progression system that is entirely RNG based and built around opening lootboxes. I love Star Wars, but thats crossing a line for me, I can't in good faith give them money when they're pushing that kind of s*** =\

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nachosjustice
Posted 04:00pm 21/11/17

If you haven't rushed out to buy it, Rdizz, it's best to wait. Prior to release, EA mentioned there will be at least one price drop next month (around the time of The Last Jedi). I'd wager it'll drop more in price next year. Hopefully, enough changes are made to salvage the good stuff before the community abandons it.

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Rdizz
Posted 12:20pm 22/11/17

When that happens nachos, where would be the best/cheapest place to buy it from?

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