Star Wars Battlefront

Star Wars Battlefront is the most immersive Star Wars video game experience ever—period. Dice (the creators of Battlefield) have done a phenomenal job at recreating this universe; primed with stunning moments that instill not only a grand sense of nostalgia for Star Wars fans, but also a genuine sense of fun. However, this experience may be far shorter lived than one would hope for a multiplayer ­only shooter. Thanks to the noticeable lack of diverse content coupled with the developer’s apprehension to push the franchise into new and challenging territories.

What Dice have given us is a remarkable and master crafted visual romp through the original trilogy. From trudging head on into blaster fire on ice covered Hoth, to narrowly passing screeching TIE fighters in the skies of Tatooine, and to chocking the enemies of the empire as lord Vader, the Star Wars universe has never felt more alive. The visuals are absolutely stunning. Grand vistas and background aerial engagements are paired with countless minute details. This includes the stellar sound design. Explosions, blasters, and Ewoks cheering in the trees, all help absorb you into the world. There are only four worlds explored in Battlefront, but each one is distinct. It is an absolute pleasure to explore each world. So much so, that I would turn the HUD off, just to engross myself into the experience.

And what a unique experience it is. Playing Battlefront is a lot of fun. Whether you’re the rebel alliance, or the empire, the game play is well balanced and runs seamlessly. Its great level design helps make the maps you play on, feel more like actual places than maps—quite an accomplishment for any multiplayer game.

The main game play focuses on your blaster of choice and power up cards you unlock. There are only a few blasters in the game, with no level of individual customization (an odd fact coming from the “unlock heavy” Battlefield 4 developers). The strategy of firefights depends heavily on the power cards. You can have up to three equipped. These cards give you items such as special weapons, grenades, and jet packs. They recharge over time after each use, allowing you to use them frequently, yet ensuring that they aren’t spammed. The more powerful weapons, like orbital strikes, rocket launchers, and vehicle pickups, are one­time use spawn tokens spread across each map. While some cards are certainly prioritized over others, such as the jet pack with its ability to get to vantage points and in and out of conflicts quickly, all the cards can be useful if used appropriately. A jet pack and an impact grenade make a great combo to take out individuals, but an ion torpedo and an ion grenade is far better at dealing with looming AT­ST’s.

On top of normal infantry game play, there are special hero characters from the films you can play as by picking up a unique token. Each hero has unique powers and buffered health bars, and therefore offers great opportunities for strategic pushes, and fun to be had. You can cut down rebels on Hoth as Darth Vader with the Imperial March theme playing, you can shoot the emperor in the face as Han Solo, and you can cut a TIE fighter out of the sky as Luke Skywalker (good luck). It is in these moments that Battlefront really shines.

Unfortunately these moments are mostly restricted two the two largest game modes, Supremacy and Walker Assault. Both offer 20 verses 20 battles with vehicles, huge maps, and hero characters. Supremacy focuses on the acquisition of sequential capture points. While Walker Assault pits rebels vs empire. Where the rebels try and stop the Goliath imperial AT­-AT walkers from reaching an end point by holding two capture points, which call in bombers, which in turn allow the rebels to do damage and try to destroy the walkers. The empires task is to stop this at all costs. Each is also balanced well, taking out walkers is just as feasible as defending them. And each of these modes offers a foundation for glorious blaster chaos and epic moments to take place. The other game modes are not as fulfilling by comparison.

They are not only smaller games, but these other modes mostly just add new names to the average multiplayer game types we’ve seen before. There’s team death match, a capture the flag variant, king of the hill which is now known as Drop Zone, MVP (where one player is a hero character, and others try to kill him or her), and a dog fighting mode. There is also a mode which pits the hero characters against each other, thus making it the most aberrant of the smaller game types. Each mode is balanced except for the dog fighting mode; which includes two star ships that are so grossly over powered, that the fate of the matches rest in whoever pilots these crafts. These modes aren’t bad by any means, but they stand as little more than brief distractions since they don’t offer the same gameplay variety or scale that the large game modes achieve so well.

There is also a co­-op option. Locally or online, you and a partner can beat missions, battle against each other and the AI, or complete survival horde type missions. Each of the co-­op options suffer from a lack of depth and replay ability. The missions serve as simple glorified tutorials. The battles are noticeably limited. You can’t play on the same team as your partner and there are no options or objectives beyond kill the AI or your buddy. Survival missions are very run-­of-­the-­mill—survive. Once completing any of these, there is no incentive to do it again. There is a feeling of emptiness in these modes.

It is actually a common feeling surrounding the entire game. The problem with the game is what it lacks, not what it has. The developers did everything they should have, not what they could have. The Star Wars universe, visuals, sounds, and game play is solid. There is a large scale game mode that compliments the universe and game play. And there is a co­-op mode. But the holes around this core are numerous. There are not nearly enough customization options with game play and features. There are only six hero characters where there is certainly a desire and room for more, such as Chewbacca, Lando, or even Moff Tarkin. There is a lack of a more extensive unlock system that provides players incentive to work towards something. Very few worlds are also explored, though they are done expertly. If you turn off your HUD to view the world, you are also disabling your scope cross­hairs. Co-­op is far too limited. You can’t customize battles or even play on the same side outside of online. And most puzzling is the absence of game modes/lessons that the developer has perfected in past games that would seem to translate perfectly to this series. Such as Battlefield’s conquest and titan assault modes.

What the game lacks is certainly a lot. But what we do get, is certainly highly polished, and can be largely fun. It is a game that has achieved a unique and fun experience, but it plays it safe by taking far too few risks in diving deeper into the source content and possibilities. Forcing players to play within its limited box of possibilities, rather than by letting players create and conceive their own abundance of experiences. It is certainly a well­ made foundation. And there is future content on the horizon. Whether the content right now is capable of keeping players online, and whether future content will fulfill some of the absent possibilities will certainly be a testament in due time, but one that I have acquired a new hope for.

8/10