Let’s begin by debunking a statement I’ve heard far too often – even from colleagues on this site – Star Wars Battlefront is not a Battlefield re-skin. Battlefield has always been about emergent gameplay, strategy, and teamwork. Ever since 1942, it’s been about setting up epic combat scenarios that allow players to create stories that are wholly unique to them. They are about you and your friends working together, taking on the whole internet with just your wits, and guns. From Vietnam to Hardline, Battlefield has always featured balance and combat systems that work together to enhance each other.
Battlefront by DICE, is about making a game that can be played by children. Now before things get out of hand let me say that there is nothing wrong with that. Many of my favorite games were made with children in mind; Gran Turismo 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3, etc. Just because a game is produced for a young audience however, doesn’t mean that it needs to lack depth. This is DICE’s greatest misstep with Star Wars Battlefront, it is made to be an accessible game, one that anyone leaving the theatres of Episode VII can pick up and enjoy for what it is; but they’ve only achieved this in the most superficial and trivial ways.
For this preview, I will mostly be discussing the Walker Assault mode, as it’s clearly the one that DICE and EA are trying to sell people on with the inclusion of Hoth, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader; that and the other two modes are bone dry. Survival isn’t properly showcased, because you can only play on Normal difficulty up to six waves when the main game will have fifteen. What results is Battlefront’s equivalent of Glass Joe; a slice of gameplay anyone could complete using their feet while sucking on the straw of a beer hat. As for Drop Zone, I imagine it’s called that, because if they used “Headquarters” Activision would sue for copyright infringement. The mode is literally exactly the same, except the game’s lack of strategy, skill, and depth makes for a mode that is less tense and exciting than what Infinity Ward cooked up in 2005 with Call of Duty 2.
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“Star Wars Battlefront is made to be an accessible game, one that anyone leaving the theatres of Episode VII can pick up and enjoy for what it is; but DICE has only achieved this in the most superficial and trivial ways.”
At first glance, Walker Assault may seem like Battlefront’s equivalent of Rush from Battlefield or Combat Mission from Medal of Honor, also developed by DICE; an attack and defense scenario that has Rebels fighting off the Imperial’s oppressive regime, and I do mean oppressive. Spawns are something that DICE have admittedly never been masters of, but their Intern Bob shouldn’t have been given access to a keyboard and game engine; his shallow mind isn’t capable of contributing to DICE’s game in a positive way. Unfortunately, DICE seem to think that Bob is, because we’re a month away from launch and the people who are in charge seem to think that his spawn system is perfectly acceptable. The spawn systems of Quake 3 Arena and Halo: Combat Evolved are careless children, meanwhile Battlefront is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre; exploding their faces off with an AT-ST’s grenade spammer.
When I say that the spawn system is bad, what I really mean is that Rebels are the Rihanna to the Empire’s Chris Brown. After ten hours played on PC and a few more played on the Xbox, I never once saw the Rebels end a game with more kills than the Empire’s MVP. But as inept fanboys will tell you on Reddit, you can beat the Empire in this mode, in the same way American’s dealt with Japan. Of course, that analogy only works if Franklin Roosevelt had to scratch lotto tickets in order to obtain nuclear warheads.
Bob the Intern must’ve also drugged the gameplay designers, because during development, DICE removed classes and decided to attach smart rockets, vehicle turrets, proximity mines and many more devices to tokens that spawn all around the map. These pickups are not similar to arena shooters such as Quake, these pickups are not consistent items that teams need to fight for control over, they are holographic images that give you random items; the usefulness of said items can range from the equivalent of a spiked tampon to the Death Star. For Rebels, the item that almost guarantees victory over the favored Imperials is the Orbital Strike, a one click item that can almost down an AT-AT by itself.
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“Within four days in a
demo Beta, I’ve already seen how infuriating this game is for people new to first person shooters.”
This is how DICE has handled the game’s “balance”. It hasn’t achieved this from Battlefield’s classic rock, paper, scissors approach, what it’s done is create a stupidly overpowered ability, vehicle or item, and counter it with another stupidly overpowered ability, vehicle, or item. Counter-play is the concept that an item should be enjoyable not just for the user, but the person it’s being used on, Battlefront fails spectacularly in this regard. Unavoidable deaths are a constant in Battlefront, regardless of your skill level. If you happen to spawn in the Rebel hanger when Darth Vader is trolling down the hall, you’ll just have to contemplate your quick demise and pray to the Swedish gods that you spawn somewhere else. Most baffling and ironic of all, removing squads, using tokens, not including two man vehicles, shield abilities that make the Armor Lock from Halo Reach look like a genius work of game design; these were all done in the name of making the game easy for newcomers. It is specifically because of these decisions that Veteran FPS players such as myself will ruin this game for them. Within four days in a Demo Beta, I’ve already seen how infuriating this game is for people new to first person shooters. They will drop in, see a hero token, pick it up, and get sniped by a person sitting five thousand yards away from where the objectives actually are. They will spawn directly into the path of an AT-AT’s laser. They will become Luke Skywalker, and dual Darth Vader, only to be locked into an animation and killed by gunfire they can’t block.
I think it’s timely that Battlefront and Rainbow Six: Siege had betas recently, because they are both attempting the same thing, a full priced multiplayer experience that will be more successful than Titanfall. Rainbow Six: Siege is aiming for an experience rich in depth, with levels that you can play over and over and over without getting bored, utilizing countless strategies that result in frantic firefights, dripping with tension. Battlefront is aiming for an experience rich in simplicity, where a five year old can spray a light machine gun in third person around a corner and get a quad-feed, utilizing all of DICE’s talents in visuals and audio design that does not appear in gameplay. I’m no armchair analysist, but I predict that while Battlefront will most certainly sell much better than Rainbow, I highly doubt that it will be loved by its fans in the same way once the hype train has derailed.
