‘Star Wars: Battlefront 2’ Is An Amazing Game, But We Have Some Concerns

Before having a chance to play the upcoming title, I previously wrote that Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is the game EA should have released the first time around. I spent a few hours with the multiplayer beta over the weekend and can confirm it indeed rules, but I do have some concerns.

Before we get into that, though, let me tell you about how it plays. After downloading the 20GB worth of game files, I was able to jump straight in and join a match on one of the four game modes available – Galactic Assault, Starfighter Assault, Strike, and Arcade.

There were three maps available in the beta, each specific to a main game mode: Galactic Assault was a 40 vs. 40 battle between clone troopers and the drone army on Naboo’s capital, Theed, Starfighter Assault was an all-space battle above the planet Fondor, and Strike was an 8 vs. 8 battle for a package at Maz Kanata‘s castle on Takodana.

Beyond how bloody cool it was to see some Naboo action, the Galactic Assault mode was my favourite of the lot, tasking the clone troopers with defending the royal palace from the separatists attempting to take it.

Upon starting, you choose one of 4 classes: assault, heavy, officer or specialist (essentially a sniper), each with their own set of abilities. For example, a specialist is able to mark enemies for other players with their binoculars and an officer will give players around them increased abilities.

On all fronts, shooting feels correctly weighted based on your selected weaponry. Landing a shot with sniper rifle feels adequately earned and laying down a barrage of cover fire as a heavy yields huge stopping power.

As the round goes on you’ll earn Battle Points which can be spent during that round on special characters or vehicles. I was able to man turrets on a gunship to give my team supporting fire from above, play as Darth Maul on the attacking side, and even Han Solo on the defence.

Being able to carve up the enemy with Maul’s dual lightsaber is as satisfying as it sounds and can change the course of a match completely, particularly if you rack up enough points to get him or other special characters early on.

The space battles are far more fun than I anticipated, operating on a similar class-based system for ships. Heavy ships are slower with greater firepower, whereas assault crafts are nimble, but have less armour. The controls don’t feel too arcade-y, but are easy enough to jump straight into.

The basics are easy as hell, but there’s plenty of room for hectic manoeuvres between bigger ships or bases for good players to sink their teeth into.

Visually, the game looks absolutely stunning and is incredibly well optimised. I was able to run the game on Ultra graphics settings at well over 60 frames per second with no problem. For the nerds, I’m running an i7 3770 processor, GTX 1070 graphics card and 16GB of RAM.

There were, however, a few moments that slowed it down, like when I was firing from a gunship during the Galactic Assault of Naboo, but it was fairly negligible and often disappeared after 5 or so seconds.

What concerns me is the inclusion of loot boxes containing items that improve abilities. While you can eventually earn enough points in-game to upgrade these stats, players have the option to buy crates to get ahead of those who don’t. It directly impacts in-game performance.

Yes, most games these days include some kind of loot system, but the majority are for aesthetic enhancements only. The problem is, this system weights the game in favour of those who drop actual money on upgraded weapons, abilities and passive stats, rather than actual ability.

Whether you think paying money for a greater chance at winning is fair or not is up to you, but if you ask me, it’s a pretty shitty cash grab.

Of course, this may not be the case in the full release and the game does point out that the drop-rate is much higher during the beta, so we’ll have to wait and see what the end result is. As long as EA can create a fair balance between those willing to pay and those who are not, Battlefront 2 will be an incredible game.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is due out on November 17.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At PEDESTRIAN.TV, we independently choose and write about stuff we love and think you’ll froth too. We have affiliate partnerships so we might get a bit of money from any purchase you make based on our recs, cool? Cool. FYI – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV