Editor's Note: This review was based on experience with a full version of the game available through EA Access before its official release. The review may be updated if post-release server performance is significantly different.
The marketing for Star Wars: Battlefront would like to remind you that you love Star Wars. At some point, we've all wanted to escape to a galaxy far, far away, and this is at heart a game that wants to give you that simple escapism.
Battlefront looks and sounds marvelously authentic to that Star Wars nostalgia. There are movie-accurate hails of sparks and vapor in every explosion, an epic John Williams-style score (from composer Gordy Haab), and distinctive TIE fighter screams and blaster fire squawks. The one exception is the voice acting, as hilariously bad stand-ins take the place of James Earl Jones, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford (the last of which sounds like he should be going on about "da Bears," not how he intends to take on Darth Vader with a blaster pistol). The sights and sounds of Star Wars are so recognizable that the series sits in the uncanny valley of popular culture, making even this minor inaccuracy a major one.
Simplicity in the stars
How you’ll feel about Battlefront depends less on the superficial details of the Star Wars simulacra, though, and more with how you feel about Electronic Arts' other multiplayer shooter, Battlefield.
Both games are developed by DICE, and both emphasize grand clashes between human players (typically 64 at a time in Battlefield, but "just" 40 in Battlefront). Where Battlefront differs primarily is in its lack of complexity. Battlefront seems aimed less at experienced shooter fans and more at casual Star Wars fans. That’s a broad enough audience that a lot of complexity had to be stripped from this year’s Battlefield stand-in.
The first two Battlefronts concentrated more on non-player characters that fought independently; you cut through the meat in a clash that waged whether you were there or not. In this latest adaptation, combat is more direct. It's you versus them, and them versus your X-Wings, TIE Fighters, AT-STs, and whatever else you can load into the laser-filled abattoir.
The new Battlefront also has a much less sophisticated upgrade system than shooter stalwarts are accustomed to. There is no weapon tailoring: no scopes, grips, or stocks to fiddle with and get just right for whatever distance you prefer to shoot at. You can switch to secondary weapons, but they operate on a strict cooldown that leaves you stuck with your primary weapon much of the time. What small customization options there are unlock slowly through play, over 50 levels of advancement that grant new guns, items, or cosmetics.
This being a more inclusive time for Star Wars, those cosmetics also mean you can choose to be a black woman in full stormtrooper regalia or an Asian Rebel ally if you so choose. Bizarrely, most of those racial choices are immured behind in-game purchases on the Empire side—in the same way that, say, a new blaster or hairstyle might be—but not so for the Rebel Alliance.
Even in matches with fewer players than your typical Battlefront fracas, play transpires at the mid-to-long ranges you would expect from the Battlefield series. You'll be picked off at a distance by one-shot-one-kill Pulse Cannon frequently, and if you're any good, you'll do the same to the other side. You'll run great distances only to get blown away by AT-AT fire, and if you want to keep playing, you'll learn to like it (as you may have already learned after a decade of similar Battlefield games).
Other Battlefield games let you make more acute weapon modifications to ease this problem and whittle your warrior down to suit the dimensions around which you want to fight. Battlefront's stricter arsenal keeps you dying where and how the game wants, and that limited mentality saturates the entire game.
Droids, drops, and deathmatch
As a multiplayer shooter in 2015, Battlefront comes with most of the modes the genre brings to mind. Supremacy, Drop Zone, and Droid Run are fantastical canvases stretched over Battlefield's bog-standard Conquest mode. In each, you run around shooting the other side and capturing points that either move (Droid Run), plunge from alien skies (Drop Zone), or just sit around waiting to be taken (Supremacy).
You could think of Supremacy as Battlefront's neutral state. It's based on the mode of note from its modern military cousin, and it sports an amalgam of everything the game has to offer. Vehicles, power-ups, starfighters, heroes, and villains materialize in as equal measure as anywhere else in the game.
Walker Assault is like Supremacy but with colossal aluminum horses trying to step on you. The mode is still weighted heavily toward the Empire's AT-ATs, as it was in the beta. Now, though, the game shows the Rebels glowing, red weak points whenever the walkers are vulnerable. It’s enough to keep the hamsters running in their wheels—a deceitful assurance that victory is possible for those plucky traitors, when really the Empire still has a huge edge in this mode. The asymmetrical desperation of the Rebels remains one of the game's strongest points and something unique to Battlefront.
Blast is the game’s deathmatch mode, which continues to feel out of place in a game operating at this scale. Heroes vs. Villains and Hero Hunt dispense with pretenses and just throw Luke, Leia, Han, Boba Fett, Vader, and the Emperor at one another and/or hapless mortals (rather than having these characters be collectible power-ups to spice up normal matches). Playing as a common trooper in these stages is an impressive way to die quickly, while playing as the stars themselves doesn't have nearly the same significance.
Above the field of battle
Finally, there's Fighter Squadron mode. Ironically, this is the mode that feels truest to the Battlefront brand, setting two squadrons of human players against each other against the backdrop of an AI tussle. Oh, and it takes place entirely in the sky. The collectible heroes and villains are replaced by the Millennium Falcon and Slave I, and may the Force be with anyone in a standard TIE fighter or A-Wing trying to greet them.
Your options in the atmosphere, as on the ground, are trifling. You blast, barrel roll, and (if you're an Imperial) boost through a frenzy of weaponized starlight. Keeping your distance isn't easy, and you'll likely die just as often, if not more so, as you do on the surface. Like on the ground, you can switch between first- and third-person at any time.
Peering out through the soot-stained cockpit of an X-Wing at whatever fraction of light speed you achieve feels great, but this also makes it hard to see most of your surroundings. You’ll want to keep your view outside the ship for the game to remain playable. It's another one of those details, like the incorrect voices, that jams the nostalgic signal to your brain. Whichever way you play, though, the aerial ballet is thrilling in spite of its limited arsenal.
Mint in box
While there’s some charisma to be found in Star Wars: Battlefront, it's always borrowed, never built from the ground up. Whether it's pulling on the well-known Star Wars license or the well-known Battlefield backbone, it always feels like a pared-down imitation of something else.
There aren't enough ways for players to interact with each other. Factor in ships and vehicles doled out as power-ups—wiping you away from the trenches and stashing you in the heavens a few seconds later—and matches tend to feel shallow after only a bit of play.
With Battlefront, EA has chiseled an exquisite playset of virtual Star Wars toys alongside a corporate-approved rulebook on how to enjoy them. The game goes so far as to include a digital diorama where sculpted figures can be unlocked through achievements. Like much of the game, it's nice to look at, but you can't do much with it.
The good
- The game absolutely nails the sights and sounds of Star Wars
- Shooting is satisfactory, even if blaster fire takes getting used to
- Wonderfully easy to get into
- Walker Assault is still delightfully desperate
The bad
- Combat and progression are too simple to stay interesting
- Somewhat bland use of the Star Wars and Battlefront licenses
- Some modes feel too similar, while others aren't worth your time
- Secondary weapons that are often unusable thanks to a strict cooldown
The ugly
- Getting sniped from 300 yards just as you've gotten the drop on another opponent
Verdict: Battlefront scratches that itch for Star Wars wish fulfillment, but when the twinkle leaves your eye, there's not much left to discover. Try it.
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