In 2015 DICE and EA released Star Wars Battlefront (2015) which was a reboot of the Star Wars Battlefront video games after they acquired the rights, however the game let a lot to be desired. Sure, the presentation was top notch and it looked like the movies plus the gameplay at times can be really enjoyable. It was however very lacking in content; it didn't have a proper Single Player Campaign and the Multiplayer maps and modes where minimal at best compared to the old school Star Wars Battlefront games that were so good and had so much on offer. 2 years later DICE and EA release the next Star Wars Battlefront game with Star Wars Battlefront to coincide with the release of Star Wars the Last Jedi movie and it ended up being one of the most controversial games in the last decade for the pay to win microtransactions scheme that it had. More than 3 years later it received a multitude of updates, patches and tons of added new content for free following the controversy with the release of the of Star Wars Battlefront Ii Celebration Edition. So, has the updates and new content addons help improve Battlefront II (2017)? Well let's talk about it the controversy and talk about the changes and improvements that the game has.
To go into detail about the controversy with the microtransactions of this game is that it was originally designed around the Lootcrates system where you could only get upgrades for what class or character you are playing as by purchasing them which offer up different star cards which utilize the different abilities and buffs for each playable class. You can either get these upgrades by either taking the slow route and getting each upgrade with crafting parts to upgrade individual star cards with low tier cards costing 40 crafting parts to make and high tier cards taking 480 crafting parts for a single card which makes a lot of the grinding process take forever to do. So instead, you'll might decide to purchase Lootcrates with real money to get the upgrades so that you can have an advantage against other players, however it is random so you might not get the upgrades for the classes you need. You might end up spending a fair bit of credits on different crates only to get emotes, victory quotes or duplicate star cards that you already got making maximizing each class star cards more tedious. You could possibly spend over £100/$100 worth on the game to get the Deluxe Edition as well as getting over 50 Lootcrates, tons of credits and crafting parts which would give you a massive head start. Because of this system you are paying to have an advantage over the other players and whoever has the most upgrades is one who has the advantage.
Star cards themselves like I said give your character or trooper different abilities and buffs which you can equip up to three at a time per class and these improve either damage, range or blast radius of some their abilities, provides faster cool down on abilities, faster health regeneration or swap out one of your classes abilities for another. The assault class for example has a Thermal Detonator which is grenade that explodes on impact but however equipping the Improved Thermal Detonator star card improves its blast radius making it more effective in combat. The assault class also has a Scan dart gun which detects nearby enemies making it easier for allies to see where they are hiding but you can swap it out for either the Flash Pistol which has a secondary fire function where you can blind an enemy or equip the Toughen Up star card ability which when activated starts regenerating your health. The other ability that the assault class has is the Vanguard which is the Slugthrower returning from the previous Star Wars Battlefront game, it is most effective at close range but equipping the Kill-streak Vanguard Star card will help extend the timer you can use it with each kill. Improving each of the star card abilities that your class has equipped helps improve your class and allows you to have a more effective class but like I said it takes forever to get all of the cards and maximizing them out because of the randomness of the Lootcrate system unless you have a ton of crafting parts on you. The four main classes, assault, heavy, officer and specialist don't just have the star cards they have also different blasters and attachments that you can unlock by getting enough kills forcing you to struggle with some of awful and basic blasters before you get the blasters that are worthwhile and more useful blasters. You don't just have the basic classes that you can use which alongside assault but also heavy, officer and specialist but you also have the reinforcement classes, vehicles, the star fighters and lastly you have to unlock the hero characters and their star cards as well which also costs credits and crafting parts.
Each character can be unlocked with credits with Darth Vader for example now costing 15000 credits where as originally, he costed 60000 credits to unlock and that was just to unlock Darth Vader. Imagine spending that much credits to unlock some of the other characters like Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Emperor Palpatine and Han Solo. You can earn credits by completing matches from 150 to 450 credits depending on your performance or by completing different milestone challenges, daily challenges, missions or by playing quick arcade matches against AI Bots but they have credits limit so if you finish like 15 matches to earn a quick number of credits you need to wait the next day to earn more. You can tell that this is very grind heavy system where it tries to get you to spend money so that you get the upgrades you want without wasting too much time but with chances that you won't get the upgrades at all which makes it the worst example of of straight up gambling. You could either spend money on the Lootcrates with chances that you might or might not get the upgrades or you could spend several hours a day to try and get all of the star card upgrades which obviously takes forever, pick your poison! When the game launched this system was heavily panned by not only critics and fans but also gaming journalists, news reporters and many others gave massive criticism towards this system. In an effort to deal with the criticism that the game received they changed the credit system, they reduced the costs of unlocking the hero characters but the option of purchasing Lootcrates was completely removed which made the amount of grinding needed to any kind of build going was just on another level.
Eventually months later after the game launched EA patched it up and changed the progression system entirely where to level up your classes you gain XP which levels up one of your classes, you're using allowing you to spend skill points on what star cards you have removing the need to spend credits to get the upgrades. The growth of the XP to gain levels is pretty decent as you can get a couple of level ups in a class per match until the higher ranks depending on how well you do in each match. If you do play the game on certain days there is a XP multiplier which doubles or triples the XP you gain getting your level ups faster. It's an improved system and you can get something of a good build going if you can somehow get good but even even with the changes you still have the unfairness of the progression system. Even with this change it doesn't fix the fact that the game was designed around lootcrate upgrade system and you still will have a disadvantage against other players online because they have more upgrades than you and they can easily beat you. You are not playing online matches against players who are much better than you through legit skill you are playing against players who have the advantage, you are facing people who have the high ground and have the upgrades that you don't have and can do more damage than you and there is little you can do about it unless you level up your classes. It's now a system that is all about grinding several hours in the online game modes to get one of your classes better, so unless you have eight hours a day to spend getting any one of your classes levelled up you will find the progression servery grindy and it is something that is not going to be for casual players.
Now let's talk about the game modes and the gameplay of Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) that are broken up between the Online Multiplayer which is where the majority of people are going to be playing and also the offline modes as well as the new game modes that the updates added.
What I was hyped up for with this game is that there is now a Single Player Campaign this time which was something the previous Star Wars Battlefront game never had and we finally get one here. The storyline takes place near the end of The Return of the Jedi where it follows new character Imperial Tie-Fighter Pilot and Special Forces Solider Iden Versio. Iden Versio is Commander of Inferno Squad who carries out missions for the Galactic Empire alongside her partners Hask and Del who are at a desperate struggle against the Rebel Alliance. The storyline starts out really strong with Iden Veriso and her allies fighting desperately for what they believe in during their losing battles against the Rebels, following the Empire's vision and there is great writing build up between her, the empire and lastly her two partners Hask and Del. It then falls apart an hour into the story where without going into spoiler territory where the story shift around degrading Iden Versio's status and the plot twist you get afterwards massively ruins what the storyline could have been on a fundamental level. The Single Player Campaign has a variety of areas where you shoot down enemies and advancing onwards when they are taken out, there are also moments where you take down a big enemy vehicle, destroy objectives, find collectables that are hidden in every level and also segments where you fly in a starfighter vehicle against other starfighter enemies. Easily the highlight of the campaign is the mission on Endor where you pushing back the Rebel Alliance before evacuating the planet, the story and gameplay during that mission is really well done especially when you see the damage that the Rebels have done to the Death Star. The update patches did add a new chapter called Resurrection which continues after the events of the main campaign adding in extra chapters to play and this combined with the main campaign takes about 5 to 6 hours to finish. It's a campaign that starts out decently but falls apart due to lousy writing that makes the rest of the campaign very terrible and mostly boring to sit through. The campaign isn't all too challenging because of how utterly dumb the AI, even patched out the AI have a tendency to spaz out like crazy when they try to take cover, they hover around and rarely ever attack when they are in vehicles. The campaign is only challenging because of the damage output that they can do to you and the amount of enemies that the game decides to throw at you.
Star Wars Battlefront II has the same gameplay style and control of the previous game but it does come with some improvements, now you can roll and dodge forwards and backwards on top of rolling to the sides making evasive movement easier when you need to take cover and avoid enemy fire with the patch adding in a cooldown on the number of times you use it. Blasters work really well, they're impactful and have great recoil and are very enjoyable to use plus the heat system is improved also where you can press the fire button when the white line is either on the blue bar or the yellow bar to cool down your blaster. Hitting the button when it is on the yellow gives you overtime cooldown for a time which helps you to keep firing against large groups of enemies. Each character or class you use has different abilities assigned that operate on a cooldown ranging from grenades which thankfully a percentage of classes and character has access to, a bigger gun like either a Slugthrower or a Sentry Gun, a shield that protects from damage, battle commands that buffs allies around them, place a turret that targets enemies and also go into infiltration where you can't be detected by enemy scanners. Some new abilities can be assigned by the different star cards that replace one of the abilities the class has equipped by default allowing you to have a class with your own playstyle to it. The game can be played in either First Person or Third Person like in the previous games and they control and play well in both of those modes, only thing I still don't get is that you can't play in First Person when playing as a special trooper or hero character with a blaster. Even the original old school Star Wars Battlefront II game allowed the option of playing First Person with a special trooper or hero with a blaster and it doesn't seem that difficult for the dev team to add in right. It might not be a big deal for most people because they would be playing in Third Person anyway but if you are going to have a First-Person option for the game at least allow it for allow all special classes as well and not have it for the basic classes and the campaign. I also don't like in the Campaign that you can't use the dodge roll like at all and I don't get why they don't allow you to do that in the Campaign where as you can do that in the other game modes. Before people respond with “Well that would have made the game too easy if it did have it.” but again if they are going to add a dodge in the other game modes allow it for the Single Player as well so that it is reasonably consistent and it would make sense rather then remove it from this one game mode for no reason. This makes the gameplay play differently than what was originally intended and some sections unnecessary difficult especially in areas where the game throws dozens of enemies at you.
On the multiplayer side of things there are plenty of different game modes to play on and also a good number of maps that you can play on compared to the previous Star Wars Battlefront game which didn't have a whole lot on offer especially with patches. The biggest main multiplayer mode is Galactic Assault where up to 40 players engage in massive battles and the goals are either to defend or attack each of the target locations and preventing the other players from winning. Each of the maps either take place in a big opened up area like the snowy hills of Hoth and the desert sands of Tatooine to more closed areas like the second Death Star and Takodana. The design of the maps in this mode aren't too bad as they are designed well for different flanking opportunities ensuring all players are on their toes and thankfully there are objective indicators telling you where to go and what to do. There are some maps where players are easily exposed to snipers that can hit from several hundred yards away forcing them to stay as low and out of sight as possible while other maps allow for more straight up combat. The massive fights are enjoyable especially with a higher player count but however the fights are hugely chaotic and not always in a good way, you don't just have the troopers you have vehicles, starfighters and lastly the heroes from the original trilogy and also the clone wars trilogy and the sequel trilogy all joining together into a single battle and it just becomes insane. In other words, you get to see Darth Vader or Kylo Ren fight with the Separatists Droids while Luke Skywalker or Rey would be fighting with the Galactic Republic, it's strange sure but it sure is cool to see bouts between all different heroes and villains from all three eras of the Star Wars universe fighting against each other. During a match you earn Battlepoints from doing the objectives or dealing with enemy players and if you have enough you can become a special trooper, vehicle or a hero character provided that you can get to them before the other players can. Using more powerful troopers and also heroes is where Galactic Assault is at its most enjoyable when you are taking up the Lightsaber and force powers, wiping out the Rebel scum on an AT-ST or taking up the skies as Boba Fett as he blasts down enemies and fires missiles from above. My best moments from Galactic Assault where when I finally got to be Emperor Palpatine and led my Imperial Soldiers against the Rebels and we ended up taking the objective and watched as every Rebel was downed by the Emperor's might just as we came close to losing.
For less chaotic game types there is Blast Mode where it is just your standard Team Deathmatch, Strike Mode which is a round based objective mode where troopers on the attacking team capture the objective and take it to the capture point where as defenders prevent the attackers from taking it.
There is also Starfighter Assault where players engage in space dog fights whilst also dealing with the target objectives. Some of the starfighters control decently well and have a good sense of weight to them, the targeting has improved and it is easier to take down enemies despite the overheat and they have their own different abilities and missiles that you can lock onto enemies pretty well with. Some of the starfighters however turn very slowly and are difficult to handle with the Millennium Falcon being extremely slow and not being turn quickly to avoid taking damage. Most players tend to do infinite loops around which makes you disorientated and it is really bad for people who has motion sickness.
Lastly there's Heroes VS Villains where the characters from all three eras of the Star Wars series come together and battle it out for their respected factions and this mode is really enjoyable to play. This is a skill-based mode where everyone tries to knock their enemies off balance while making use of each character's individual abilities and coordinating with your allies. I do like that now in this game the heroes regenerate health as well which they couldn't before in the previous game although their max health decreases if they take too much damage forcing you to be careful and not play recklessly. It's a system where even if the heroes are overpowered, they can still be taken down just a fast as a regular trooper but lost health can still be replenished by taking down enemies.
The updates did add some new game modes that bring more content available for the game, for starters there was the limited timed Jetpack Cargo where everybody only plays as Aerial Troopers only which sadly never returned in later updates, then you got Ewok Hunt which started as limited time but then returned as a full mode but arguably it's the least enjoyable mode in the game. In Ewok Hunt Stormtrooper players try to survive a night on Endor against Ewoks until the pickup ship arrives and each Stormtrooper defeated becomes an Ewok making the attempt to survive more tense. It might seem enjoyable but there are only two maps available, you don't upgrade any of your troopers in anyway and it becomes boring after like maybe two or three matches before you want to go back to the regular multiplayer matches.
Speaking of Ewoks they would become the Infiltrators for the Rebel Alliance and the Infiltrators are the new reinforcement class where they are a more stealth focused class and can reveal nearby enemies. The Ewoks are small but very dangerous pests to fight against because they can auto fire with their bows alongside throwing fireflies at you. You also have for the Republic Side the Ark Troopers which were OP when first introduced but now they are nerfed down and the Separatists have the Droid Commandos which have a sword for melee attacks. The First Order has the Sith Trooper which applies speed buff and lastly the Resistance has a Caphex Spy which uses Scanner Beacons to disrupt enemy scanners and call in a remote bombardment when outdoors. As for the Enforcer Classes they altered some of them for majority of factions, all of the Light Sides used to have Wookies that were overpowered as long as they were handled correctly now, they are restricted to only the Rebel Alliance in the Galactic Civil War maps and the Resistance Side have the Wookies swapped with new classes instead. The Republic now has from Star Wars Republic Commando the Clone Commandos which have blasters use standard blaster shots and explosive shots and the Resistance has the Ovissian Gunner which has a big minigun and operates similar to the Heavy Class. The Republic class can still use Wookies but they are only limited to certain maps. The Death Troopers have different blasters from what they used to have but they still a massive threat for enemies to take down. The First Order Aerial Class has been changed and improved, has a new blaster which both functions as a standard blaster and a grenade launcher making it more effective in combat. The Separatists finally bring out the big guns and have the Droidekas which are fast in their ball form but in their combat form and with shields activated they are massively lethal. Just like with all classes in the game they have their own star card loadout which of course means levelling up the class level and then upgrading one of the abilities that it has.
Back to the game modes, the other weaker modes they added in was Hero Showdown which is only half decent if you are looking for smaller player count modes but it is round based and it is only entertaining for so long. The other Hero Mode added in is Hero Starfighters which is Hero VS Villains but only round based and in Starfighters. This would have been a nice mode where it focuses on the hero character starfighters but however people tend to rage quit early after losing a round leaving you stuck on a nearly empty lobby while you wait five to ten minutes for other people to join in to resume the match.
Returning from the previous Battlefront game that was added in as DLC is Extraction where in it the Rebels try to steal cargo and move it to the Extraction Point where as the Imperials try to stop them from doing so. This mode has been improved for this game by removing the ability to play as heroes and focusing on trooper combat and the maps are fantastic even if it is just only two maps available allowing for closer ranged combat. This mode was great and I enjoyed it a lot and it used to be easiest way to complete the trooper challenges until they for whatever reason moved it to Strike Mode making it now Strike/Extraction instead so that the only way to play Extraction now is to sit through the Strike matches and hope that it goes to Extraction afterwards which is kind of dumb.
Next mode they added is Capital Supremacy which is now changed to Supremacy. In this mode two teams fight to capture command posts to build up the reinforcement meter so that you can attack the enemy ship. This first phase of this mode comes as close to replicating the classic old school Battlefront games' Conquest Mode and the developers have done a fantastic job of bringing it into the modern generation. The second phase has the attackers blowing up the objective areas where defenders hold out as long as they can before the time runs out returning back to ground combat. It's a bit of a bummer that the base attack phase doesn't happen in the original trilogy maps but it is hands down one of the best modes that was added in and it combines the most chaotic fights in large open areas with both players and AI bots thanks to the large 40 player count plus you do get the choice to do anyone of the three eras as you please which is nice quality of life option.
They then added Co-op Missions which is a four player versus enemy mode where players fight off against the AI enemies and then taking Command Posts on the map to win the match. This mode is enjoyable with friends and it allows you to fight against very challenging AI enemies that are very mobile and aggressive. This mode is also the easiest and fastest way to completing a large percentage of multiplayer challenge milestones and upgrading your character classes and best of all you can play as either as any one of the Clone Wars factions, the Galactic Civil War factions and also the Resistance/First Order Factions as you desire. Want to do the missions for the First Order to play as Captain Phasma and Kylo Ren? You can. Want to be the Droids and then control Darth Maul for his challenges? You can. Want to just play on the side of the Galactic Republic? You can do that also. Like with Supremacy it's a quality of life that allows you pick any side and concentrate on that side.
For those who enjoy fighting against AI bots the Single Player now has an Instant Action mode added in where you can practice the maps of Co-op Missions and Supremacy by yourself as any side your favourite factions and with different parameters as you like, from how many numbers of heroes you want the AI to have including vehicles and so on. Again, the AI bots function very well and they can provide a challenge even on lower difficulties and punish you for playing too recklessly. This adds more ways that you can play around the AI bots considering that the base game has the Arcade mode where you can setup custom made matches with different settings that you can play around with. Lastly there is a set of different set of Arcade Challenges on the Light and Dark sides which have three difficulties and these aren't really that challenging as long you are effectively making use of the hero characters.
They also added some new blasters for the four main classes to unlock and some of them are actually pretty good to use. One of the most OP blasters in the entire game still is after the inclusion of the new blasters is the TL-50 which is what Iden Versio uses and is what the Heavy Class can get their hands on. It's a blaster that fires small rapid fire blaster shots, has a fast cooldown and also has a secondary fire which is actually pretty devastating and you don't get FPS games today with guns having secondary fire so it's cool they did it well here.
Afterwards they eventually added new heroes like Obi-Wan Kenobi, General Grievous, Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker from the Clone Wars Saga and all that needs to be said is that even after nerfs Anakin Skywalker is still one of the most overpowered characters in the whole game thanks to his ridiculous force range and over abilities. They even BB-8 and BB-9E from the sequel trilogy era and those droids are pretty fun to play with especially when you get the upgrades for them. I also do like seeing Anakin Skywalker go into a Lightsaber duel against his dark side persona Darth Vader as he falls in fear.
Lastly, they added new appearances for existing and new characters which optionally you can either get them by spending credits, using crystals which are purchased only with real money or by spending £20/$20 on the Celebration Edition which gives you every single appearance available from the get-go at least up to the December 2019 update.
For what the game gets all kinds of negative comments about the lootcrates and the multiplayer the gameplay is still really enjoyable and it is still possible to have fun with the game. The Blaster play is much better than the previous game, each of the different Heroes and Villains are fun to use both as a Jedi Hero and as a Blaster Hero whilst that classic Star Wars soundtrack is playing. There are way more maps and game mode than what the 2015 Battlefront game had in just the base game itself and the free content we got with this game just adds more to play around with. It's a Star Wars game and it plays really well even if there are a few weird glitches and bugs and rare times it would crash. Is it still playable and enjoyable as of the day I am reviewing this game? To a degree it is still fun and I still enjoy this game and all of the multiplayer modes. The problem is how many people are playing now, there are a decent number of people still playing the game currently but are likely playing either Supremacy, regular Heroes VS Villains and Co-op Missions for the majority of challenges. There are still some people playing Galactic Assault or Starfighter Assault but they are tougher to get matches going and you will possibly be waiting around in a lobby with at least one or two players to possibly nine or ten players needed to get the match going. It's nowhere near as bad as Star Wars Battlefront (2015) but you are bound to get into a small amount of low player lobbies and have to wait for more people to show off. People tend to get really toxic with the online play now and then they later rage quit the match and leave the other team at a disadvantage which at times ruins the experience for others. You still will have fun with Star Wars Battlefront II, just only when you are playing with players that are willing to stay in the server and also when you get yourself a good class build. The new heroes and game modes are fantastic including the Supremacy game mode which carries a massive player count with also AI and the gameplay and maps are perfectly well designed and it is just an incredibly fun and enjoyable mode to play. Least in the online multiplayer mode they limited the number of Aerial Troopers so that everyone doesn't spam Jetpacks and the overpowered EE-4 is nerfed and is a special weapon for the Specialist which helps make the online matches balanced compared to the 2015 Battlefront game.
What is impossible to deny is that just how absolutely incredible the game just looks, I mean it's amazing and what DICE was able to pull with graphics engine is impressive. All of the planets from Tatooine, Hoth Naboo, Endor, the Death Star and they are massively faithful into the material in every way and longtime fans will easily recognize each location from the films. All of the troopers, their uniforms, blasters and vehicles are accurate according to the canon timeline of the Star Wars Universe and I like that you can see dirts of sand, snow and rain actually show up on the models and it is really incredible detail to see your character get covered in dirt like it's amazing. The explosions and various effects from the blasters and the environment are brilliant and they just all look incredible. It even manages to maintain a steady frame rate despite how much chaos is happening on the screen at once not matter what platform you are playing. It is excellent optimization for console players what the developers have done with the Frostbite engine is an outstanding achievement.
So, what Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) started out as an infamous pay-to-win game then becomes one that is more tolerable to play because of the changes, additions of game modes, heroes and patches and especially the removal of lootcrates even though EA are still to this day defending them as is the case of EA's atrocious business practices. There is more content on in this game compared to the previous Star Wars Battlefront game from DICE/EA even with the latest patches and updates combined and it is a more polished and more enjoyable game regardless of the company's evil ways. Does it compare to the 2005 version of Battlefront II? Of course not! It's not going to beat against the excellent gameplay and replayability of the old school Battlefront games but this 2017 version has improvements both post and after the patches and update that is enjoyable online. It's a travesty of a game turned into a somewhat good game and it is heavily recommended to only massive Star Wars fanatics that is willing to overlook EA's worst business practices and spend dozens of hours upgrading their classes. The force was with this game and all of us even after years of improving and fixing the game to become better and it still is to some degree a good game that still has some problems especially with the massively progression system that takes forever to get the build you need to have a chance against other players online.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Score: 7.5/10
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game Title: Star Wars Battlefront II Celebration Edition (2017)
Platform: PlayStation 4
Developer: EA/DICE
Genre: First Person/Third Person Shooter
Age Rating: PEGI: 16+
Release Date: 5th December 2019
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Good Points:
---------------------
Graphics looks absolutely outstanding and it is well optimized and plays well
New Heroes, Maps and other content added and it has more base content than the previous game
Supremacy Mode is the best new game mode that closely resembles the old Star Wars Battlefront games
Improved gameplay and mechanics that make the games enjoyable
The Bad Points:
---------------------
Single Player Campaign suffers from poor writing and execution plus doesn't allow you to roll dodge
Massive unfair progression advantages against players online
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------