Where do I even begin? (I will only touch on a few issues in detail here considering this blog post would be extremely lengthy to cover everything that has come out about the game in the past few weeks.)
Star Wars is my favorite franchise. Star Wars games make up a large portion of my video game collection. The future of Star Wars games no longer seems promising. I hope Disney will seriously consider pulling EA's license for the Star Wars franchise. This is the problem with monopolies. They have too much power and can get away with absurd business practices because they have no competition. (If you also support the idea that Disney should cut ties with EA, consider signing this
petition.)
Battlefront II (EA, 2017) is full of a lot of empty promises and greedy business practices to accompany its beautiful facade. I have been following the development of the game for a long time now and it seems that for every promise that has been kept there are 2-3 promises that were empty or led to underwhelming results.
Who is to blame, EA or Dice? A little of both? EA pushes for all the micro-transactions and disgusting business model, while Dice gives in and plays ball? Dice has done an incredible job with the aesthetics of this franchise, hands down. I don't think many people would argue that point. However, they really missed the bar with content.
I don't play online multiplayer for multiple reasons. I don't have a subscription to Xbox Live or Playstation Plus, internet speed and connection are unreliable, etc. My preference has always been (and probably always will be) offline, single-player content. EA/Dice have been talking up the single player content for a long time now, promising it would be an improvement over Battlefront (EA, 2015). To their credit, we are getting a single player campaign that does seem very intriguing. Yet many reports this week are indicating the campaign is rather predictable and lackluster overall. A one-and-done experience? Perhaps. Hard to say until I play it or hear more from someone who has finished it.
Skirmish mode was added as an update to Battlefront (EA, 2015) several months after launch. This mode was reportedly a pet project put together by just two developers at Dice in their spare time. Skirmish was what I was looking for along. Only disappointment was that you could only play Walker Assault or Fighter Squadron on a handful of maps. Battlefront II (EA, 2017) has been in development for at least 2 years (since the last game was released) and "Arcade" mode is more bare bones than Skirmish mode in Battlefront (EA, 2015). When the developers were asked about this mode in today's Reddit AMA their response was as follows:
As for more Arcade, just like every mode in our game, we want to look for ways to expand it going forward. Unfortunately at this point we don't have anything to share right now, but know that we care about Offline modes.
(
To see the original comment and full response, click here. Another related non-answer
here.)
Yeah, right. Bottom-line is EA's bottom-line. Offline players likely make them little to no money beyond the initial sale of the game so it gets pushed off to the side.
Quick history to know before reading on: Battlefront 2 (released in 2005) was developed by Pandemic Studios. They were later acquired by EA and shut down in 2009. EA has a history of doing this and its latest victim was Visceral Games who was working on a single player Star Wars game that had a lot of potential and promise. Rumors are they were shut down when EA was displeased with the lack of micro-transactions and related money-making features currently included in the game. Greed really does seem to be the modus operandi of that company.
The gaming community (and more specifically the community interested in single player content) have essentially been asking for Skirmish mode as currently found in Battlefront (EA, 2015) to carry over into Battlefront II (EA, 2017) and then get updated to make use of the new locations and game modes designed for the new game. Is that really too much to ask?
Battlefront 2 (Pandemic, 2005) is still beloved by fans and had this available day one, at launch. I have owned the game since it first came out and in that time I played maybe 2 matches online. Meanwhile I have spent hours and hours of time (more than I probably care to admit) playing that game by myself or with family and friends offline. The current state of Battlefront II's (EA, 2017) offline content hardly compares to what I can get out of a game I already own which is 12 years old.
Improved and more abundant offline content could still come out in the future as part of an update, I know. But I'm not holding my breath any more. If they really cared about "listening to feedback" and implementing what I'm seeing in dozens of posts and comments all over various parts of the Internet, I would expect them to have included a meatier offline experience at launch, or at the very least release some kind of statement saying something to the effect of, "Rest assured, we're working on it. It will be released in the near future once we have completed its development." That would appease my concerns and get me more excited about the future prospects of the game as a whole. So far it's just been non-answer after non-answer.
The loot box controversy is probably the biggest story surrounding the game right now. I think it is a terrible business practice that seeks to monetize the impatience and frustration of gamers. Some countries are reportedly investigating the situation to classify the concept of, and interaction with, loot boxes as gambling and I am fully on board with that position.
I really want to be able to praise this game and love it as much, if not more than Battlefront 2 (Pandemic, 2005). Sadly the stars are not aligning. I rarely buy video games at full price any more, but I was willing to make an exception for this game and have been setting money aside for the past few months in anticipation of its release. But enough is enough. EA's grubby fingerprints are all over this game and I want no part of it anymore. The fact they have the exclusive rights to making videos games for the Star Wars franchise is incredibly disappointing.
Unless improvements are made, I'll stick to playing Battlefront (and sadly, Star Wars games in general) when it was (they were) good,
"before the dark times, before the [EA] empire".
