Star Wars: Battlefront Review

The large modes thrive on imbalance, either temporary or permanent. The most obvious is that Empire Stormtroopers have white armor while the Rebels don their camouflaged gear; Rebels are nearly impossible see in the forests of Endor until they fire blasters. So how does the game balance the sides? Not well, unfortunately, giving the Empire one or two AT-ST vehicles while the Rebels have heavy turrets and better defensive positions. The binary changes in power from powerful units will often make progress irrelevant since heroes can capture objectives. Rebels might need Star Cards to deal with vehicles and the Empire might need the wall hack—sorry, Scan Pulse—just to find soldiers hiding in the shrubbery. Players who reach level 50 can unlock a black Shadowtrooper which is even harder to see than the camouflaged Rebels in some situations.

This Rebel spawned under my nose, two more followed within seconds

The worst problem in these large modes is the terrible spawn points. Players will often spawn beside opponents engaged in combat. Enemies will spawn directly under your crosshair multiple times within seconds. There are even situations where the spawns change while players are capturing objectives, effectively punishing attackers. And it gets worse. One Rebel soldier had the misfortune of spawning under an exploding AT-ST. Air units are able to camp enemy air spawns because you do not immediately gain control of starfighters. Even when the spawns are not so obviously horrible, they are still maddening due to map structure. When the Rebels get pushed to the final point on Hoth, they will spawn in the middle of nowhere with zero cover. It was not uncommon to spawn alongside 10 friendlies in a narrow corridor; one accurate grenade killing every solder attempting to find the exit. The December patch alleviated spawning issues in Walker Assault by spawning players far away from the objectives. Supremacy remained awful because the frontline changes rapidly, placing soldiers amidst enemy forces. The luck-of-the-spawn is often more important than player skill. It can be utterly decimating as you suffer death after death with no reprieve. You cannot choose where to spawn unless you have a partner that serves as a mobile spawn point and even then you will spawn in battle. The abysmal spawning ruins both large modes and requires a complete overhaul.

The infantry-only modes work much better, due to balancing, maps and more reasonable spawns. Player counts for these modes range from 6v6 to 10v10 and they are generally pleasant because of their simplistic objective designs. Compared to the large modes, there are more routes and fewer soldiers. There is still plenty of action, but you have more control over when and where it takes place. There are quite a few different infantry modes, including Blast (team deathmatch) and Cargo (capture the flag). Drop Zone has two teams chasing randomly-placed drop pods, which gets quite competitive and exciting as they are recaptured multiple times. Droid Run is like domination, capturing moving droids instead of flags. Aside from the Hero Hunt and Heroes vs Villains modes, these smaller modes don’t have the powerful hero characters or vehicles. This allows a broad spectrum of Star Cards to be effective without as much background noise. Spawns are less of a problem too, although respawning in front of a Cargo carrier—that just killed you—is horribly unfair. The spawning tends to keep the teams in clusters, but primarily there are fewer shifts in power to put the spawn system under pressure.

Cargo is actually quite enjoyable and has more natural teamwork than most modes

These small infantry modes take place on the nine confined maps that are not just subsets of the big maps. There are several good map/mode combinations. Drop Zone on Sullust is a good size and allows flanking even without a Jump Pack. The Imperial Station on Endor makes for interesting Cargo matches thanks to the side interior corridors around a central area that has suitable cover. The Endor crash site is perhaps the best of Battlefront visually and structurally, with careful lighting and multiple interesting action spots. Most small maps function well, but there are some hiccups. Bad examples include Drop Zone in the Ice Caves on Hoth, where your entire team can spawn on the other side of the map and will struggle to even reach the pod in time—never mind the horror that arises from explosives near cave entrances. The Rebel Depot can be just as bad, with major chokepoints that can see one team win quite easily if a drop pod lands behind them. These infantry modes also need to shuffle teams between matches, especially since you cannot manually switch sides, but when teams are even they are great fun.

Battlefront is disappointing when it comes to connectivity, especially compared to DICE’s previous games. The game uses automatic matchmaking, which means everything is hidden from the player. You cannot see what modes are popular, there is no server browser, and you cannot set maximum ping. In fact, you cannot see pings at all, only accessible via a console command. Server connections were inconsistent, although very few matches were completely unplayable. These problems could be localized, but playing on a server with a 200ms ping resulted in quick deaths, grenades disappearing, weird player collisions or delays after kills. Quickly matching into full games is nice, but not preferential to low-ping server that will always be more responsive. The slight differences in responsiveness can be frustrating. Occasionally the game failed to find a game in any mode, and waiting for 30 players just to start is ridiculous. With a plethora of modes, and future DLC that may split the community, these issues are a concern. What a shame DICE has gone backwards and that the most recent Call of Duty game has better connectivity on the PC.

Put your hands up if you are frustrated with Star Wars: Battlefront

Battlefront is a multiplayer shooter, but DICE have added a few solo and co-operative missions. Training missions are a good way to become familiar with the basics, like flying aircraft, although they won’t take long to complete. Battle missions are effectively bot matches where you collect tokens from defeated enemies. You can play these as a hero, which is a great way to learn their abilities without the pressure of an online match. Survival offers the most value, as you defeat 15 waves of enemies which might take 30 minutes. On Hard or above, survival is difficult as you face cloaked Shadowtroopers, multiple AT-ST vehicles, shielded enemies and even TIE fighters. Survival can be entertaining but you can only use two predetermined Star Card hands, presumably for balance reasons—how bizarre that solo mode is more concerned about balance than the multiplayer. Some maps from these missions would have been great additions to the limited multiplayer offerings too. These solo and co-op modes are fairly insubstantial although they might be worth playing once.

It is easy to love Star Wars: Battlefront because of its authenticity to the universe, but it is easier to fault it for its mistakes. The excellent visuals, guided by accurate depictions of just about everything from the original movie series, can only take the game so far. Unfortunately the multiplayer suffers balance problems and can be frustrating. The large modes are compromised by dubious map structure and truly awful spawn points. It becomes a test of stamina just to keep playing them. The smaller modes are sustainable and enjoyable, although they are not perfect and seem to be less popular. With a limited number of maps, and a bland collection of solo missions, there are some questions about value. Star Wars: Battlefront is like a young Jedi that failed to complete his training and turned to the Dark Side because an inhospitable planet broke his resolve. The Star Wars movies taught us there is a way back from the Dark Side—it just might take a few sequels.