Star Wars Battlefront

Ten years after and millions of request later a new installment in the Star Wars Battlefront has finally released. EA and DICE have taken it upon themselves to recreate the greatest battles from the Star Wars universe and have gamers experience them first-hand. This is the most realistic Star Wars game to date, it’s a unfortunately that it won’t your attention for long.

Every mode is unlocked at the start, but those looking to learn the basics before jumping into battle can choose to play the five training missions. These missions effectively teach you the necessary skills to use your equipment, control a hero and fly a ship. Each mission rates your performance with stars and credits based on that score, giving new players greater incentive to learn the basics.

DICE has omitted a campaign in Star Wars Battlefront but there are missions you can play either solo or cooperatively. Survival has up to 2 players eliminating waves of increasingly stronger Imperial forces. Across the 4 maps available Survival offers the best way to introduce a newcomer to the Battlefront series and offers more context than any other mode in the game. It’s strange that despite this easy-to-grasp mode experience gained in Survival doesn’t carry to other modes.

Battle mode has two players, or one AI opponent, facing off against one another in an attempt to reach 100 points first. To earn points you and your AI allies must collect tokens from fallen adversaries. The AI is usedmostly as cannon-fodder but they do an adequate job of holding their own against their own kind. Here you can choose to play as a Rebel or Imperial infantry, or as one of Battlefront’s 6 heroes. Since each hero plays different from one another this is the perfect mode to gain an understanding of each hero’s skills while in active combat.

Battlefront can be played can either be played through a first-person or third-person perspectives, with the exception of heroes who are limited to third-person. Your choice of perspective ultimate relays on personal choice but both styles have effectively constructed to play efficiently as the other. First-person view allows for more accurate aiming while third-person increases your depth of field view. Switching between the two is quick, allowing players to shift between each view while in the heat of battle.

Battles are intense, especially in large fire fights. Players can choose to join with a partner, who they can spawn next too. However if going lone-wolf is more your style you can hunt down special tokens hidden throughout the field. Instead of jumping into a AT-AT or equipping a rocket-launcher special tokens hidden throughout the field that any player can pick up. This grants access, sometimes for a finite amount of time, to special equipment, vehicles and heroes.

Heroes remain the highlight of Battlefront but seeing the drop from 23 from Star Wars Battlefront II to 6 is a massive setback. Each hero has three different abilities, with some of them sharing abilities like Princess Leia and the Emperor. Each Hero feels notably stronger than an ordinary soldier, and the feeling of seeing on these powerful avatars dashing around the field adds flare to any battle.

The joy that comes from taking control of one of these powerful warriors is treasured. Since Heroes cannot regenerate their health they can be easily taken down with proper coordination, however an unorganized team can quickly fall to the might of one these powerful characters. The heroes are imbalanced, with BobaFett being the clear superior out of the rest due to a mastery of close, mid, and long-range combat: however dawning a light-saber remains as exhilarating as ever. Vader and Luke are the most visually intimidating of all the heroes, and seeing one of these champions charging can excite allies to push forwardmorale or force players to run in fear.

The Emperor and Leia take the bottom rank in hero listing. Unlike the other powerful heroes, who act as vanguards of destruction, both Leia and the Emperor have been reduced to a supports role.  The Emperor being the most strangely designed character, with his iconic lightning blasts feeling scattered andinefficient, unlike the deadly electric attack from Destiny’s Warlock.

Battlefront supports nine different game types, some original to Battlefront and others staples within the third-person and first-person shooters. Blast is deathmatch, Cargo is capture-the-flag where players attempt to steal 5 containers with 2 of them being behind enemy lines. Drop Zone is domination and Droid Run has you attempting to capture three droids and holding all three simultaneously for 20 seconds to win the match.

If you want to play as a hero there are two modes dedicated to increasing your chances of playing as one. Heroes versus Villains guarantees that you’ll control a hero at least once. This 6 on 6 option has three players taking control of infantry and the other three as heroes. The first team to win five rounds takes the match, with each new round having a random player

taking control of hero. Hero Hunt has 7 players hunting the 8^th player who happens to be in control of a hero. Whoever lands the killing blow takes control next, similar to Juggernaut in Halo or Max Payne 3’s Payne Killer mode. Only kills earned while in control of a hero earn you points, however if you end up in control of Leia or the Emperor victory can be difficult to achieve.

Fighter Squadron seeks to adhere to your inner pilot. Focusing entirely on flight this mode has its own set of heroes: The Millennium Falcon and Slave 1. Just like ground heroes these can be activated by collecting a specially marked token on the field. You gain points by destroying AI and human controlled ships, with player controlled ones granting more points, and eliminating transport shuttles before they leave the war zone.

The best and largest game types host up to 20 players for each side, these are Walker Assault and Supremacy. Walker Assault centers on the giant-four legged tanks, which players can control if they find the right token. Supremacy is probably the best mode to experience everything Battlefront has to offer. Similar to Rush players must take control points before advancing to the next. When one side takes a point the other retreats the their previous point.

The maps vary depending on the player count in each mode but there are only four different planets:Tatooine, Endor, Hoth and Sullust. DICE has done an excellent job of crafting maps designed for large and small battles instead of simply sectioning off select areas. It’s a shame that DICE’s notorious design achievements don’t bleed into the rest of the game.

With only eleven weapons to choose from you’ll find the selection limited. They cannot be customized or upgraded and the Star Cards, which serve as your abilities and secondary weapon, only have 24 choices. It wasn’t long before I collected all the cards and weapons, with the only things left being cosmetic options, emote and achievements. Unless you find yourself hunting for a specific piece of armor you’ll find yourself with reasons to continue pushing forward. Strangely most of the faces are human models, with the alien infantry requiring the highest rank and most amount of credits, compared to the others, to unlock. What is more confusing is that both sides have the same faces!

Challenges do exist to encourage finishing a diorama of character models from the Star Wars universe. With only four planets to choose from and the Season Pass advertised on the main menu it’s hard to deny Battlefront’s incentive to give a taste of what’s to come.

While most of the modes are forgettable and the absence of weaponry, heroes and planets is bewildering considering DICE’s past projects, most notably the Battlefield franchise, being known for massive amounts of unlocks that this lack of options is present. What makes Battlefront truly exceptional is how it looks and sounds, this is an absolutely gorgeous game and the sound effects are chaotic. New pieces were written for the game and seamlessly blend well with the scores from the original trilogy. 

Star Wars Battlefront lacks the content offered by many other competitive shooters. It starts strong only to fumble constantly, but there’s never has there been a Star Wars game that felt this real before. It won’t hold your attention for long but for a few hours the epic cinematic experience will draw you in. 

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
Twitter | YouTube | Facebook