As a long-time Star Wars fan, I was really looking forward to Battlefront II from EA and DICE. While the original Battlefront II game is still dear to my heart, I was hoping for something more from the latest installment in the franchise. While I understand that this is just a beta and does not include any of the campaign, the Star Wars Battlefront II bet disappoints immensely. With the release day only being a month away (November 11), there’s not too much time to make any changes. This is a glorified demo. I hope that I’m proven wrong, but EA is destroying what was once the best Star Wars game series.
There are three multiplayer modes that you can choose from in the Battlefront II beta: Galactic Assault, which is very similar to its Battlefront I counterpart, Starfighter Assault, where you are placed into a space dogfight, and a smaller game, Strike, which is where one team attacks and one team defends an objective. There’s really not a lot of variety. Galactic Assault on Theed was really cool and I love that they are finally incorporating the prequel locales as well as clone troopers and battle droids, but this should have been done in the first game. Galactic Assault is pretty straightforward: you act as an attacker or a defender and destroy the objective. It houses up to 40 players and is fun, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel any different than Star Wars Battlefront. It’s also still horribly unbalanced, with the attacking team usually coming out on top as the victor. That is not fun.
I actually had a good amount of fun with Starfighter Assault. Star Wars has the best space battles of any franchise and to be able to re-enact those dogfights is a pure delight. I was thrown in as an Imperial fighter and was tasked with protecting the Empire’s defenses against the rebels. This again showed the game’s lack of balance, as the Empire won almost every time. The controls could be confusing at times though, even frustrating. It was actually one of the highlights of the beta and improved on the original game, and I hope they do space battles in VR like they did for the Rogue One expansion of Battlefront. That was a lot of fun and controlled very well.
Strike was my favorite mode (and coincidently only 16 players, compared to 24 and 40 for the other modes). It was also the most balanced mode. The map I played on was Maz’s castle from The Force Awakens, and it was really cool to see all of her flags hanging, as many of them are easter eggs from previous Star Wars films. In Strike each side both and attacks to defend an objective. It’s nothing groundbreaking, which is really how I feel about the entire Battlefront II beta, but it is fun and the map is well designed. There’s nothing distinguishing about it though. It feels completely generic as a game mode. In fact, this could be said about all of the modes.
I understand this is just a beta, but by that same token, the game is released in a month. This is a glorified demo. Aside from the Strike playlist, there are severe balancing issues in both Galactic Assault (as there was in the first Battlefront) and in Starfighter Assault.
There’s always the off chance that the campaign is great, but the Star Wars Battlefront II beta disappoints immensely. When it comes down to it it’s not even really that fun. What was a day one purchase for me now has me second guessing whether or not I should get it. If the campaign is good, maybe, but this “beta” is just a glorified demo (which is all too common sadly) and actually hurts the game’s cause rather than promotes it. What was once a great series has now been run into the ground by EA.
I hope the campaign can save it, but to be quite honest I’m not holding my breath.