So, I have a confession to make. I’ve been struggling with it for a few months. I’ve thought about seeing support groups or maybe even booking a psychologist. Here goes: I actually like Battlefront 2. I know, I too wish it weren’t the case.
After seeing that I’d put roughly 80-90 hours into the PC version of the game (as well probably 10-20 on PS4), I realized that I might have a problem. You might be thinking, “Hey, 100 hours isn’t that bad, even if it is in this trainwreck of a game. Plenty of people sink multiple times that amount into online games,” and you’re right about that. Whilst 100 hours is a lot of time, it pales in comparison to some of the more extreme cases of gamers spending time in a virtual world. That being said, given that it’s in Battlefront 2, concern might be a necessity.
It’s well documented that Battlefront 2 was (and sort of still is) a disaster. There’s really no other way to put it. From its frankly embarrassing launch, to the pitiful drip-feed of new content that the game has received since launch, to the numerous bugs, glitches and other oddities that have no right still being in the game well over a year after launch. The game was such a PR disaster for EA that it was almost impressive. Almost every step that Electronic Arts made in the process of launching the game was spectacularly stupid, to the point that it became almost a sick joke. That’s mot why I’m writing this, however. Don’t get me wrong, EA’s not getting off that easily, but their ineptitude (as well as some of my thoughts on them in the industry) will be covered later. My god, it will be covered.
To begin the crux of this story, I suppose I should take you back to the beginning of my recent addiction to Battlefront 2. It was around early to mid November, and I was in a rough place. Mostly just your run of the mill personal problems but, without wanting to go into too much detail about my own life, I’ll just say that I was feeling particularly low. Usually, when I feel incredibly down, I can’t turn to video games. I find that they don’t really distract me from my thoughts, and instead leave me sitting there dwelling on my own problems instead of fully engaging with what I’m playing. Through some weird alignment of the planets, I decided that I wanted to play Battlefront 2. I’d owned a copy of the game on PS4 since launch and had purchased a copy on PC some time during around mid 2018, if memory serves. Through my playing of the game, I learned an interesting lesson about the games I tend to play.
If you weren’t already aware, I don’t tend to play your constantly bombastic, run-and-gun, never-a-dull-moment types of games. I enjoy action, but I don’t often play games that are all-action-all-the-time. I’m more of your Elder Scrolls or your Dark Souls kind of gamer. I play games that do indeed contain action, but that have moments of down time. I don’t play games where you’re constantly in the heat of battle. This is a problem for me. During those times of intense combat and ‘stress,’ I feel fine. I can concentrate on the action and turn my mind off to the world around me. The problem is when I hit the slow moments. The moments where you explore a hidden area or talk to an NPC. I couldn’t take it during these moments. I barely paid attention to the game I was playing, instead being pulled right back into the real world, remembering exactly why I felt terrible. I needed a game that was all action, no downtime. This is where Battlefront 2 came in.
So, that’s why I’ve played so much recently. As a side effect of me engaging with the game so much over the last few months, I’ve really got to experience almost every facet of the game (except the single player. I played that bit at launch and decided that I would rather die than go through that piece of shit again). Almost all of my time recently playing the game has been in multiplayer. So, where do I begin?
I have a short list of points written down that I feel are worth mentioning here, but it has ended up as more of a positives and negatives rather than an actual collection of talking points. As is often the case when writing about games, it’s a lot easier to say that something is good or bad than it is to examine why. But, hey, who cares? most readers are probably going to be pretty content with another person raking EA over the coals, so let’s start there.
There are a host of issues that plague Battlefront 2. As mentioned earlier, the game has been a veritable mess since launch. I don’t really have any order in which these are going to be discussed, but I think that you’ll probably be able to tell of vitriolic of a hatred I have for some of the games issues by the way in which I talk about them. Hopefully. That might be a bit arrogant for me to say about my writing.
Point Numero Uno: The Drip-Feed of content.
I think it’s fair to say that Battlefront 2 hasn’t exactly been overburdened with extra content since launch. Part of that is due to the amount of work that DICE had to do to all but start again on some of the systems that were in place when the game released. Those of us who were present in the early days will remember the shit show that was the loot boxes and the almost admirably obvious way in which EA tried to abuse its customers. It’s the stuff of legends. A gaming horror story so well known that world governments began to get involved. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen well known politicians straight-facedly accuse EA of creating a Star Wars themed casino. Perhaps that’s why people were so disinterested in Canto Bight. We’d just seen our heroes get screwed over in a Star Wars casino, we didn’t need to see it again.
Unfortunately, the mess left by the game’s monetization scheme needed to be cleaned up, and that took DICE quite a long time. As a result, actually new content was practically non-existent. We did get The Last Jedi season, which was pretty good (seriously, the trailer for it is easily one of my favourite videos on YouTube. It’s unbelievably awesome). Following that was another fairly empty period. We did get the Solo season, but outside of the amazing new skins for Han and Lando (and I suppose the one for our favourite walking carpet), I haven’t seen any of it, because the new map it brought isn’t playable in the games main Galactic Assault mode, which is an issue I will be touching on later. We had a few small modes like the Ewok Hunt added, but other than that, Battlefront 2 was about to enter a long hibernation. Eventually, in late November, we got season 3: Geonosis, the first large new content added to the game. The update included a new fan favourite map from Star Wars, two new heroes (both of which need to be unlocked via an in game purchase with credits, unlike the two heroes added in season 1). We recently also got a new villain addition in the form of Darth Tyranus, or Count Dooku for you normeis.
So, two large and one small map, a handful of new heroes and… nothing else really. I should try and be kind to EA by acknowledging that the new content is all added to the game free of charge and isn’t hidden behind DLC and a season pass. Unfortunately, Battlefront 2, has a fairly major problem. One that runs right to its core and is all but impossible for DICE to change now that the game is out: The way the game is built means that pretty much all of the maps feel identical. This isn’t universally the case. The first part of Crait is visually interesting and completely different from any other map in the game. Geonosis, however, play almost identically to every other galactic assault map. The fact that not every map is walker assault does help distinguish the maps a little, which is a something that 2015’s release greatly struggled to achieve. Unfortunately, most of the maps do feel incredibly similar. I will try to give credit where it’s due, however. Moving away from 2015’s rigid design has helped greatly. Having the Tatooine map be set in Mos Eisley instead of some innocuous patch of sand and rocks is a great improvement of Battlefront 2015 (which will be refereed to as BF15 from now on), where, if you just changed it to be set in snow instead of sand, could easily have replaced Hoth. The failure to distinguish between maps in terms of gameplay in BF15 was a glaring, perhaps even fatal, flaw that is substantially reduced in Battlefront 2, although it shadow does still stick around in certain parts. For example, the second phase of Crait is practically identical to the second phase of Hoth, which is practically identical to the second phase of Starkiller Base. Each section simply asks one team to hide behind similar shapes and sizes of cover in similar configurations whilst the other team tries to find the cheapest way possible to get the edge.
Ok, that last sentence kinda touched on a point I wasn’t planning to get into for a while, but here goes. Balance in this game is a bit of a joke. Once again, nowhere near as terrible as BF15, where everyone was running around with a TL-50 and spamming secondary fire like it was going out of style. In Battlefront 2, the balance issues are mostly caused by the Star Cards. Thought you were out of range of a thermal detonator? Too bad, that motherfucker has the improved thermal detonator star card, so you can eat shit. It’d be interesting to see whether these cards were thought of first, followed by the idea to have them be accessed by opening random loot boxes, or if the loot boxes were decided to be the money making method of the game, and DICE had to figure out what to fill them with to stop the dread-god EA from throwing them into the pit of eternal damnation. It’s a moot point now, I suppose, as the loot boxes have been removed, but either way, the system is pretty terrible. Having tangible upgrades that make players better than others just because they played longer spits in the face of a fair game, so no matter if the chicken came before the egg, all I know is that someone should probably be fired.
Even outside of the Star Cards, balance is still a problem. Blaster turrets, much like all non-player controlled turrets in multiplayer games, are the bane of my life. I can’t remember if I lost my shit about Torbjorn in my Overwatch post, but I should say now that his turret is one of the main reasons why I stopped finding any enjoyment on the game. Battlefront 2‘s officer has the ability to drop a turret pretty much anywhere, the lazily smoke the afternoon away as it cross-maps the competition with some truly infuriating accuracy. Some weapons are just plain better than others. I imagine the CR-2, wielded by the assault class is probably the most hated regular weapon in the game, given how it can melt you in an instant if you round a corner to and find someone at point blank aiming it at you. This is doubly odd, as the assault class already has a dedicated close-range, high damage tool, in the form of the vanguard, a standard ability that can be upgraded with star cards. It seems like an odd oversight for DICE to give the class this ability, then also give it the CR-2, which may have a lower damage per shot, but has the range and rate of fire to counter that, making it play an almost identical purpose.
Of course, as with any online game, even the most well balanced weapons and abilities are inevitable lifted or dragged down by the servers they are forced to contend with. In this regard, Battlefront 2 is still struggling. Now, I’ve heard horror stories of the servers in the Battlefield games, and by all accounts the Battlefront games stand head and shoulders above their DICE released contemporaries, but I feel like just being less terrible isn’t something to gloat about. Whether it’s being killed by a sniper that shot the area you were five seconds ago, or being killed by a grenade through a recently closed door, or having your X-Wing be destroyed by the Tie Fighter you just passed, you’ll likely notice that what you’re seeing on your screen is probably about a second out of sync with what’s actually happening. Once again though, I suppose we must accept that stability is something that is sacrificed on the altar of online gaming. It’s an immutable law of nature that if you want to play a game online, you’re going to have to accept that the universe doesn’t care for you or your internet speed.
Moving naturally from poorly optimized servers to poorly optimized gameplay, we reach bugs, the real stock of EA’s games. Perhaps no publisher, outside of Bethesda, is as ridiculed for it’s buggy releases than EA. The obvious examples of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Battlefield 4 come to mind, but less mentioned releases like Dragon Age: Inquisition are sometimes overlooked when it comes to bugs. Battlefront 2 is no different. Whether it be your run-of-the-mill character ragdolls that suddenly breach the atmosphere, or your mystical stormtrooper falling through the floor, Battlefront 2 is firmly resting in the camp of bugs. Unfortunately, not all of the bugs are as simple and comedic as one would hope. From the smaller things like the character selection often failing to be recognized, requiring a second press of the mouse button to finally get back to the action, or the infuriating habit of star fighters your piloting to inexplicably explode (this has happened dozens of times to me. My ship explodes, the game says that no one has killed me, I get no points for the death, and I’m forced to respawn with a 450 credit hole in my match), there’s a lot to cover. There are small design oddities, like the profile of whomever killed you covering the chat window, meaning you can’t send what are no doubt very deserved death threats to the dickhead sniping you on Crait. There are weirdly omnipresent bugs like the sound completely disappearing at random times during a match, sometimes even requiring a restart. That issue of game suddenly inheriting the properties of a silent movie without the jovial piano are constantly reported on forums across the internet, and seems to be fixed and then re-broken from update to update. To be honest, most people who’ve played Battlefront 2 for just a few hours could create a biblical list of technical issues that infest the game, but I’ve been told that complaining about bugs in a DICE release is about as much use as the TSA, so I’ll probably just leave this here before this already overlong post becomes any more of a suicide note than it probably already seems to read.
I have a final point that I’d like to make about the way that EA runs its business and treats its subsidiaries, but before I get to that I’d like to at least point out the areas that the game succeeds. As with BF15, Battlefront 2 looks and sounds incredible. The maps and assets are all intricately detailed, the music is even better than in its predecessor, and the voice acting is… Ok, you can’t win them all. There are other good things to say about the game, but I don’t want to end up making this just a black and white good versus bad list about the game.
So, let’s talk about EA. Their business practices are some of the most hated in the industry, they’re known as the undisputed king of the bad game publishers, and they are famous for killing of games and studios because, as a publisher, they have a very strict idea of what they want out of a game, namely: methods of monetization. The day that EA releases a game that doesn’t have some sort of micro-transaction will likely be same day that hell freezes over, and I don’t think that the EA management could handle that kind of temperature change (I’m really happy with that joke, thank you). None of that is new information to anyone. I’ve been thinking a lot about EA’s business practices recently, in an effort to figure out how they manage to still release profitable games, and I think I’ve figured it out. This likely isn’t a revelation to many people, but I think it’s a good enough explanation for anyone who isn’t entirely familiar with EA. So, Electronic Arts owns a lot of game developers, meaning they also own all of those developers IP’s. As well as this stockpile of companies, they also have the exclusive rights to publish games from some extremely popular franchises, most importantly, Star Wars. This is why they still make money every year. If you want to buy a serious new Star Wars game, you have no option but to go to EA for it. They have the supply, and we clearly have a lot of demand. A solution I’ve heard many times around the internet is to simply not buy their games. This is a seemingly smart point to make. After all, if we don’t buy their game, they don’t make any money, their investors leave, they spiral and eventually shut down. Gamers everywhere win, and a Return of the Jedi style celebration is held on Endor. Unfortunately, EA knows that this is something that gamers talk about doing. Why do you think they spend all of their time amassing such popular IP’s and developers? EA has us by the balls. Sure, if we all skipped out on the next big Star Wars game EA would lose money. But do you know what else would happen? DICE would disappear. EA would, without a second thought, shut the studio down. This is because EA owns so much, has such a large portion of the gaming industry under its belt, that it can easily survive the failure of a major game. They also know that their developers could survive it too. EA is smart. Smarter than we give them credit for. A lot of us love DICE, but to see them continue to make the games we love, we have to support them. If we don’t EA will destroy them. They’re being held ransom by their publisher. EA has an unspoken ultimatum in the gaming industry: “If you don’t buy our games, the people who are going to really suffer are the developers, not us.” We’ve seen it happen already, and EA has even started to strike before games are even released. Viceral? Gone. EA believed it say waning interest in a product and dropped the hammer before it could it could even see the light of day, reminding the gaming world that it has the power to smite down any company it owns with little in terms of consequence. We all hate Electronic Arts, but they hold so much in their hands that if we want our favourite developers to survive, we have no choice but to give money to EA. Well played. You bastards.
Y, Though? 