The hopes were high when a reboot of Batlefront was announced at 2013 E3, even more knowing that the game would be in charge of no other than DICE, the developers of the acclaimed Battlefield series, which inspired the original Star Wars Battlefront games. Sadly, DICE it's under EA's wing, which from a extremely objective point of view, could be seen easily as a non too consumer-friendly company. As the months and then years passed, the speculation and excitement was bigger and bigger from the fans, especially after the gameplay trailer shown at Star Wars Celebration earlier this year. Finally, the game came out; after having played over 20 hours, I can't deny that I've had an awesome time playing it, but the feeling about what could've been generates on me a sensation between rage and disappointment. On the graphics and sound department, the game is absolutely flawless (excepting the awful voice acting in most heroes and villains), the game looks and sounds like Star Wars and because of that, it's one of the most immersive game to date. Then, the gameplay; it's pretty "arcade" or casual, really easy to get into, something that could bother some "hardcore gamers", to me it's fine because keeps the accessibility that the original games had and almost every other Star Wars game have had. The main problem of the game comes when we dive into the content of the main game, a game that costs full retail price. The developers said some months before release that the game would be multiplayer focused, without a conventional campaign, the first bad sign. With that said, it can be expected that the game would have a really complete multiplayer experience (like every other modern multilayer based game), but what we get in Battlefront it's an extremely limited experience; the main game only come with four planets (Hoth, Endor, Tatooine and Sullust), with a new one being added later this month (Jakku), the number of planets was alarming and worried a lot of fans when it was announced, but then they (Dice) said that every planet would have different maps. Yes, in fact, every planet have different maps (something like 4 or 5 each), so, the main problem lies into the game modes. There are something like 10 game modes, which sounds like a decent number, the problem is that only two of those apply all the features that the games disposes (Heroes/Villains, vehicles, massive ground battles; basically what the original games were all about), but almost every other game mode (excepting Fighter Squadron and Heroes vs Villains) feels like just a fill in (like Blast, a painfully generic team deathmatch), modes that that end up as bland and too different from what people used to love about the older games, massive Star Wars battles (like the ones on the two "big" modes, Walker Assault and Supremacy). Summaryzing, we end up having: two "real" modes, whit four maps each (which are all pretty similar), 6 heroes and villains to pick (3 each), 4 ships in total, two ground vehicles (both from the empire side), 11 blasters, 25 "star cards" (perks and various equipment), an almost empty and lazy character customization and a laughable single player "experience"; plus, when you first boot up the game, you already have a text box on the main screen offering you the fifty dollar season pass (almost the same price of the main game), almost saying that you can't have the full experience without it. I could dive more into the game aspects, but you get my point. This game could've been one of the best game in history, but the developers messed up, the game had a rushed release, which causes an almost sickening dependence on future DLC. If you don't like Star Wars nor arcade/casual shooters, I wouldn't recommend this game to you, lacks on content and, consequently, replay-ability.
Review of Star Wars: Battlefront
