Star Wars Battlefront 2 Review

Developer: EA DICE
Publisher: EA
Release Date: November 14, 2017 (Deluxe Edition)
ESRB: Teen / PEGI 16
MSRP: $59,99 / $79,99 Deluxe Edition
Available Platforms: PS4 [Reviewed], Xbox One, PC
Genre: First-person shooter, third-person shooter

Star Wars Battlefront 2 – the most controversial game of the year? It’s no secret the game has received a lot of backlash for its progression system and micro-transactions. Before we get into all of that, let’s talk about the offline portion first.

Offline Campaign

One shortcoming of the last Star Wars was the lack of a campaign. The developers listened and made an offline story this time. A campaign playthrough lasts anywhere from 4-6 hours depending on the difficulty setting. For a full priced game that’s not much and I would have loved for it to be longer. However, at least those are 4 quality hours. The game looks super nice visually and runs at 1080p60fps. There are 13 story missions. They are a mix of everything. You have your first-person shooter sequences but there are also starfighter sections (flying X-Wings, attacking other spacecraft) and you get to play as heroes. It’s good preparation for the multiplayer as it grants insight into core gameplay mechanics and different weapons. The storyline wasn’t all too exciting (i.e. predictable), but hey, the game’s selling point has always been the multiplayer, thus I will put more weight on it in this review. The story alone I would rate an 8/10 – short but sweet. Just could’ve used a few more hours of gameplay.

Online Multiplayer

All right, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. There has been a lot of negativity and community backlash surrounding the game’s progression system and microtransactions following the EA Early Access Trial. The gist of it is this:

In order to level up a character class you must either draw a random card from a loot box (which may or may not be for your character of choice) or craft the desired card with crafting materials. The cards represent skill points. The only way to get crafting materials is – again – for random loot chests (and a few are one-time rewards from milestones).
A big concern is that the loot chests are really expensive and take forever to earn (a 20-minute match gives 250 credits, a trooper box costs 4000 credits, so that’s up to 5 hours per box). The loot boxes provide very little crafting materials and you never know what class exactly you’ll get a card for. There are 12 classes and 23 heroes / hero ships, each of them has 5-17 different cards, each card has 4 upgrade levels. There are exactly 324 unique star cards (skills) with 4 upgrade levels (1296 skill points total). Now imagine your odds of getting the skill you want when opening a random loot box. It’s a game of chance and if you don’t have hundreds of hours to play then you gotta rely on micro-transactions to maybe (randomly) draw the card you need.
It’s not unreasonable to call this “gambling”, that’s why Belgium’s gambling authority is investigating EA right now. It sets a very dangerous precedent for the future of gaming. If EA is allowed to get away with this crap, what will stop them from doing the same in the future again? Just last week Need for Speed Payback was released (also by EA) and it too features a gambling-based progression system. That’s not a desirable future for games. Star Wars’ entire multiplayer is built around microtransactions and that’s what I really think is morally wrong. EA is trying to milk every cent out of this franchise, thereby creating a “pay to win” situation. The advantages you get from those cards are not minor either. In Heroes vs. Villains and Starfighter Assault it makes all the difference and you don’t stand a chance against players with fully maxed cards. In other modes you can compensate for it a little bit with team play but the disadvantage remains. And sure, you can get everything through in-game progress, but with each class requiring you to unlock the cards again, it is not feasible nor fun for the average human to unlock everything. The heroes (such as Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker) are also locked behind a paywall (of in-game credits). EA has already decreased their cost by 75% but at the same time reduced the campaign completion reward by 75% too. Unlocking all the heroes still takes forever so you gotta choose whether to invest in starcards (skills) or heroes. Will you pay money for them or spend an absurd amount of time to unlock them?

Even if it weren’t for the randomized progression system and pay-to-win “micro” transactions (which cost up to $100 a pop) I really don’t see this multiplayer being fun. There are only 5 modes, it’s imbalanced, super repetitive, there are so few maps and heroes, the weapons have no recoil (no skill involved), Snipers are underpowered (same damage as assault rifles), people always end up getting crammed in one spot on the way to the objective, the micro-transactions are greedy and hurtful, there are frequent server problems (shows an error each time when finishing a match, often gets stuck when searching for 1 more player), it’s just not a great experience in any way whatsoever.

The imbalance is really bad in some game modes. Particularly in Heroes vs. Villains, the Villains win 90% of the matches. This is because they have far better abilities. It’s always a combo of Darth Vader + Darth Maul + Kylon Ren + Boba Fett. All the other characters are useless. In Galactic Assault I’ve never seen the attacking team win a match, the defenders have it way too easy.

The online trophies are also restrictive and repetitive as hell. Makes me wonder if anyone at DICE / EA bothered to platinum this game, it’s no fun to pursue the platinum or 1000 Gamerscore.

To sum up the online in one sentence: It looks really gorgeous, but it’s the most outrageous microtransaction-pay-to-win crap ever seen in a full prized AAA game.

Here are some ways EA could fix this hot mess:

• A) Remove the random loot boxes completely and replace them with a fair system that rewards XP for each character class as you do kills with them, thus increasing that classes’ level and unlocking new cards over time.
• B) If sticking with the gambling system, give us 40 crafting parts per match win and 20 per loss. Also decrease the cost per loot box to 1000 credits and make trooper boxes the same price as hero/starship boxes.

Arcade

Lastly, there’s also an arcade mode that can be played solo offline, online co-op and local split-screen co-op. The arcade is a training match against bots. There are also “Battle Scenarios” in which you use heroes to kill a certain amount of enemies before time runs out. The mode is okay, nothing special for a shooter really. What’s odd is that there’s a cooldown on the credits you win from this mode. Yet another attempt to stretch out the game and push microtransactions.

This Sucks:

• Worst progression system ever
• Microtransactions make the game feel like “Pay to Win”
• “Gambling” in a game rated T / PEGI 16 is morally questionable
• Horrible online trophies that hinder the experience
• Snipers are no fun, they do less damage than Assault Rifles
• Imbalanced Heroes vs. Villains mode, the villains have far better abilities and win 90% of matches
• Too few heroes, you always fight the same ones in Heroes vs. Villains (always Boba Fett, Darth Maul, Darth Vader, Kylo Ren)
• Imbalanced Galactic Assault Mode (Defending team has it far easier and wins most rounds)
• Cooldown period for earning money from arcade (attempt to push microtransactions?)
• Getting crafting parts is too hard, there should be some for every match that you play
• Short story (4 hours)
• Starfighter Assault is the most boring thing ever
• Only 5 online modes is not enough for an online-centric shooter

VERDICT:

It’s sad to see a beloved franchise like Star Wars being destroyed by corporate greed. The only good thing to come from SWBF2 is the campaign. The rest they could have delivered in form of a $20 DLC to the first Star Wars Battlefront. The entire online progression is built around micro-transactions on a pay-to-win basis with randomized loot boxes. It’s simply no fun to play in an online ecosystem like this. Shame on you, EA.

FINAL SCORE:

3/10

Reviewed on PS4 Pro (version 1.02). A free review copy was provided by EA. Finished the story, found all collectibles, played all online modes for a few days.

For more on how reviews are scored, check out the Review Policy.

While you’re here, check out the Star Wars Battlefront 2 Trophy Guide & Roadmap.