Anyone in the gaming community could rant about the loot box scandal of EA Star Wars Battlefront 2 back in 2017. But EA and Dice have since done everything in their power to keep the game alive. Throughout the past two years, the game has been releasing free content to its player base, even though about 10% of its players have continued to play it since launch, and that content hasn’t disappointed.
It’s been one massive apology from EA and Dice after another, but people still have the audacity to complain about how slowly the content was released. They can’t really be blamed for that, considering the idea that the marketing team came up with as the game’s biggest money maker (the loot boxes) was scrapped and caused the game millions of dollars in lawsuits.
This really doesn’t make any sense to me, because there are tons of games that correlate to the “pay to win” fad. The concept of these loot boxes were: players could buy them with in game currency that could earned through playing the game (over a very slow pace) or buy it with real money. But the loot boxes were essentially a gamble that players would improve certain characters, starships, reinforcements, and heroes (characters being standard soldiers while reinforcements and heroes can be played by obtaining an in-match currency called Battle Points while the in-game currencies I mentioned before are known as Crystals and Credits).
But here’s where it doesn’t make sense: there are many other games that incorporated this concept long before EA ever did with Star Wars Battlefront 2. Developers of Call of Duty Black Ops 3 that was released back in 2015 began incorporating this heavily in their games, giving players the opportunity to obtain better guns and skins to improve their player set through an in-game currency called COD Points. To go back even farther, Grand Theft Auto V released its online platform a year after the game’s release back in 2013. Developer Rockstar’s game allowed you to purchase GTA online “credit cards” in order to allow players to purchase faster and stronger vehicles to further themselves along and give them a better chance at victory.
I can see why EA were the ones that got sued, considering the demographic of games like Battlefront 2 were aimed at young children. But Rockstar and Activision know damn well their M rating they slap on their games doesn’t stop kids under the age of 17 from getting their hands on the game. So I just have to ask where’s their gambling lawsuit?
But I digress. The point I would like to make is that Battlefront 2 is nearly three times the game it was at launch back in 2017. Developer Dice has dropped content nearly every month like they originally promised before the game’s launch; its Clone Wars season that lasted throughout a majority of 2018 and 2019 can possibly be held personally responsible for keeping the game alive. All of that content along with the releases of the games two now most popular game modes Supremacy and Co-Op brought a majority of the original player base back to the game. Now with all three eras of Star Wars being brought to those game modes, it has never been a better time to be a new player and start playing the game.
That’s the purpose of this article: bring people back to this game. Because these games and Star Wars itself have always caught my eye since I was a child; and I’ve never seemed to be able to let it go. Even before EA owned the rights to these Star Wars games, back when they were developed and produced by LucasArts, I played my heart out on those games; nearly every rainy day was spent in my basement melting my eyes in front of my TV fighting for one faction of the Star Wars Universe or the other.
Battlefront 2 by LucasArts will forever be a Playstation 2 and original Xbox greatest hit. But EA and Dice have nearly made their game as great as the original. It’s graphics are way beyond the original (this should be obvious because of the evolution of gaming technology over the last twelve years). Both games make the player feel completely immersed in a Star Wars battle; but EA’s efforts to recapture the images from the movie sets and Dice’s game engine gives the player a true Star Wars experience. The only factor where the original Battlefront 2 beats out EA is map variety; having 30 different locations, EA’s Battlefront 2 had hardly half of that upon the game’s launch.
But in the end, if you’re a Star Wars fan and you like video games, you should hop on to Star Wars Battlefront 2. Because since the release of the Celebration Edition back at Christmas time, the game has improved even more. Another great thing is that so much of the player base is new players and they are all complete trash; so if you were familiar with the game before it fell into the toilet for a little while you should be able to stomp on these kids.
If you’re on Xbox One and happen to read this, I hope to see you on the Battlefront.
