Star Wars Battlefront 2 was developed by EA, and unfortunately isn't the classic Battlefront 2 developed by Pandemic. It released in 2017, with the huge controversy regarding micro transactions. With such backlash, Disney stepped in and EA decided to temporarily remove them, only to plan on bringing them back.
This time we are treated to a story, it's set during The Return of the Jedi. The story stars Iden Versio, a commander in the Empire and daughter of an Imperial Admiral. She is leader of Inferno Squad, the other members; Gideon Hask and Del Meeko her right hand men. I won't go into too much detail of the story, but I will spoil the general plot. As you're an Imperial, you're a villian, which is a great and unique story for a Star Wars game. After only a few missions, you end up against the Imperials, here's why; while on a mission to extract an asset to the Empire, the planet is attacked. Iden and Del are trying to help civilians escape, Hask freaks out and calls you and Del traitors to the Empire. So, basically, you tried to evacuate civilians while on a mission to extract someone, and that's treason.... right.
After fleeing from the Empire, Iden and Del eventually find themselves working with the Rebel Alliance. Despite being very high up in the Empire, Iden and Del were clearly ruthless to be so high up. The rebels take them in and quickly rise up the ranks in the rebel force. Leia and Iden are even laughing and joking with each other early on. Hey Leia, she worked for the people that blew your fucking home planet up... It's dumb. Leia, Han, Lando and Luke are all badly forced into the story, they're even playable in some missions. Each mission with a hero felt like it was a demo for the online, it was terrible. Although the story wasn't great, if they swapped the hero missions for more with Iden, it would've been stronger. Of course they didn't have the balls to keep us as the enemy.
A little more on the story, after all, this is what sold me on getting the game so soon. There aren't really any new characters, but one in particular is probably the best in the game, Shriv. Shriv, a big player in the Rebels adds a lot of humour, and a lot of his jokes land. I was always happy when he was accompanying me on my mission. Iden was an ok character, her story was set up well, but the poor character development and flat personality made it difficult to really care about her. Del is much stronger, incredibly likeable and good company, it was pretty hard to believe he was so high up in the Empire, he seemed too nice. Hask, the villain of the story was quite strong too. Very well acted, intense, just how he turned on you was ridiculous.
There are plenty of space battles during the campaign, I'd go as far to say there's more missions in space than on the ground. If you told me that before I played it, I wouldn't have been happy, but the space battles were far stronger and more fun. There was some stealth included, it worked well but there wasn't many chances to use it. You can pick your loadouts during missions, and edit your abilities. You could also use cards during the story but I never did, I hate the card system and can't believe that survived from the first game. It's really short too, there's just no time for anything to develop. Iden felt cast aside which was a shame, they forced the heroes into the story and quickly made them best friends with the rebels, it was tacky. The story wasn't really interesting and was done carelessly.
Onto the multiplayer. There's a lot less modes, a bunch had been removed from the game. There was a couple of additions, Strike and Starfighter Assault. Strike has you in a battle to complete objectives in two teams, Starfighter Assault has teams of pilots engage in an objective based match that's across multiple stages. You can use crafting parts to upgrade cards, but who cares? That's pointless shit, crystals are the in game currency, both are a crock of shit, they're just a cheap ploy to get you to spend real money. No full price game should ever have micro transactions, but hey, at least they made their season pass free right? Oh, that's just because they ripped everyone off who bought the first and had to win them back somehow.
Battlefront now spans across all film eras, but they cheaply removed everything to do with Rogue One. Now the original trilogy, prequel trilogy and current film series are featured. The same heroes are back excluding some of the DLC characters like Greedo amongst others. So, now they've added two new film eras, how many new heroes do we get? FIVE. FUCKING FIVE. what the fuck, are you serious? Fucking five? The original Battlefront 2 added seven-fucking-teen. They didn't have heroes in the first game, but they added seventeen, and that was only across two eras! You're telling me, three whole eras, tonnes of heroes and you can only add five? Iden's one but no one gives a shit about playing as someone you control throughout the story, and Poe is only a vehicle hero, so they dont really count. From the prequels we get Darth Maul and Yoda.... Two. Where's Obi Wan? Anakin? Mace Windu? Grevious? From the new films? Rey and Kylo. Two again? Sure they gave us Finn and Captain Phasma as free DLC, but the game didn't even release with them? How can a game released in 2005 be so superior to one released in 2017?
There's practically a whole new roster of guns, I loved a lot on the first, but most don't reappear. I struggle to even find a gun I like using. I realised, as much as they added in, they took even more out. There's no battle scenarios now, they were shit but that's more gone. No more survival either. Hey they added arcade! Oh, cool, can you play online with a friend? NO OF COURSE YOU CANT, WHY WOULD SOMETHING SO USEFUL BE IN AN EA GAME? you can only play arcade in splitscreen, but not online. What the fuck is wrong with EA and Dice? How can they keep getting the Star Wars Battlefront series so fucking wrong? How? All they had to do was just make Battlefront 2 (2005) with better graphics and throw in the new film series, the hard work was already done for them.
God damnit EA. You fucked it up, AGAIN. What's worse is they'll get another chance, Battlefront 3 will happen. LucasArts didn't even make it to a three, and they perfected it. FUCK YOU EA, you've tarnished the Battlefront name. NO, you murdered it, buried it, only to dig it up again and shit all over it. I don't think I've ever been so angry at a video game's fuck up, granted EA are no stranger to my gaming rants. I grew up on Battlefront, the first was fantastic I loved it. The sequel was near perfect, addictive as Hell, a major improvement with a shit of additions and amazing cast of heroes, they were missing only Qui-Gon. A game twelve years old was clearly so ahead of its time, EA have only reached a fifth of the original. The original was made when companies cared, they actually wanted to make good games. Now? Now it's all about money, creating so little, for so much more money. It's companies like EA that have really screwed over gamers and passionate developers.
When Battlefront was announced it was being rebooted, I couldn't have been happier. The original Battlefront 2 is one of the best games I've played, very likely in my top five games ever. After what I've seen them do in two games, I wish they just left it in the past. The best thing EA could do now, is fuck off Battlefront 3, it doesn't deserve to exist, or at least be EA's game. Fuck that off and just remaster the original, it's what we gamers deserve. The only games that come out now seem to be remasters, why not remake games that actually deserve one. This shares the name of one of the greatest video games in existence, but it's just a cheap imitation.
6.9/10
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