With Battlefront II dropping next month and the Beta being out this week, there's been a lot of excitement in the Star Wars gaming community. Star Wars fans of all ages and backgrounds are eagerly anticipating this release- even tabletop gaming fans!
Personally, I think the game looks pretty cool, but I do have some concerns with it still. These worries eventually led me to consider how Battlefront could learn from some of my other favorite Star Wars game, like Imperial Assault, Rebellion, X-Wing, and Destiny. For the purposes of this article, I'm considering all Battlefront games- even the old handheld ones. Here are some of my thoughts.
Getting Ship Controls Down Right
I'm far from being competitive at Fantasy Flight's X-Wing miniatures game, but I've really enjoyed what I've played so far. One of my favorite parts of the game is how each ship has its own movement dial. For those unfamiliar, at the start of each turn of play, competitors secretly set each ship's movement dial to a certain setting that determines both the direction and speed that the ship will fly. This way, you can feasibly simulate the constant chaos of multiple ships flying around simultaneously, without actually needing ten arms.
What's really cool, though, is that each ship has its own separate movement dials. For instance, a ship like an A-Wing would have options offering both speed and maneuverability. Something clunkier, such as a Y-Wing, might be a little slower and be restricted to wider turns. I've found that this really helps to give each ship its own feel. In fact, sometimes it's fun just to set up a little obstacle course for your self (with asteroids provided in the core set) and try to get a hand for a ship's particularly feel.
Battlefront, as a video game, should also be able to offer players a piloting experience that "feels" right. Early entries in the series were sort of hit or miss with this, and I'm not totally sold that the 2015 title was much better. Each ship should feel like we're in control of it. Sure, we see more speed with A-Wings and have more armor with X-Wings, but I think even more control over these ships could be awesome. For example, we should be able to close the S-Foils, sacrificing aggression for speed. For A-Wings, the burst of speed should be built in, not some sort of weird rechargeable ability- or, at the very least, there should be more control over how much speed is used, like the ship "sprint" button in 2005's Battlefront II.
I'm not saying that ship control in Battlefront isn't fun or decent, but much like the controls in that game in general, I'd like the ability to have more direct control over the ship's actions and not simply press a button to see an animation take over.
Don't Be Afraid to Go Off the Grid a Little
Much like Imperial Assault's characters like Captain Terro and General Weiss, Battlefront II is set to feature some new protagonists in the form of Inferno Squad. This isn't even the first time the Battlefront has introduced its own characters. Fans of the criminally underrated Elite Squadron might remember characters like X1, X2, and Falon Grey. And honestly, I think that's really cool. Introducing original characters allows the game to tell a story that isn't as badly hindered by the strict canon that Star Wars needs.
However, Star Wars is a big franchise, and it covers a lot of ground. So far, Fantasy Flight Games has done a pretty good job of really branching out and grabbing content from different areas. Across their catalog, we have items ranging from the former canon in Legends, stuff from the new Marvel comics, items from the Rebels and The Clone Wars television shows, and more.
Now, I think Battlefront has done an okay job in the past with heroes. Adding in Ki-Adi Mundi and Aayla Secura was a neat move back in 2005- those two probably didn't have to be in the game, but they added more and diverse options to the hero cast. Renegade Squadron added in characters like Asaaj Ventress, Admiral Ackbar, and IG-88. Not unknown characters again, but still ones that fell well outside what fans might have expected from the developer.
Then came 2015. We got 3 heroes for each side at launch- Luke, Leia, Han, Vader, Palpatine, and Boba Fett. Iconic heroes, sure, but honestly, it's embarrassing how safe they played it with that. Granted, DLC (paid, by the way) did expand the roster, and even added some more left field picks like Greedo and Nien Nub, but it's a shame fans had to wait and pay for them.
Now, with 2017's Battlefront II, we are getting an expanded hero roster. As I currently understand it, it looks something like this:
Prequel Era
Yoda
Darth Maul
Original Trilogy Era
Luke
Leia
Han
Vader
Palpatine
Boba Fett
Iden Versio
Sequel Trilogy
Rey
Kylo Ren
Finn (DLC)
Phasma (DLC)
To be totally fair, it's more than likely that there is more (reportedly free) DLC coming down the pipeline, presumably with more characters. Also, as far as I know, this leak isn't 100% confirmed. But you'll notice one huge issue with this, assuming it's true. At launch again, the vast majority of the heroes are from the Original Trilogy era, with only one hero per faction at release day for the other two eras. And on top of that, despite original character Iden Versio, it looks like the Original Trilogy era is just getting the same heroes and villains it had at launch last time.
Hopefully the DLC will fix this. Give us Rex or Ahsoka. Give us Cassian Andor, or whoever Thandie Newton is going to play in the new Han Solo movie. Give us Rose Tico, or that "Tell that to Kanjiklub" guy. Just please, please stop making us wait and pay for heroes we've played in your previous games.
People Like to Play with their Friends
Sure, FFG has various competition circuits, and that's really cool. But to me, nothing beats getting a game out and playing with friends. Whether it's finishing an Imperial Assault campaign with the stakes at their peak, breezing through a six hour long session of Rebellion without realizing how much time had gone by, or teaming up to fight Cthulhu, one of my favorite parts of gaming is the interactions I have with friends and people I love.
The same goes for Battlefront. Back in 2004, nothing beat splitscreen battles, either with friends at your side or against you. Battlefront and its sequel were the go to game whenever my friends came over- I have no doubt that I've put over 500 hours into that game over the past fifteen years.
2015's Battlefront seemed to forget that. Sure, online play is fun for some and necessary for others, but it's just not the same for me. I'd love to have a significant offline experience, but the game just didn't offer that. The skirmish update significantly increased what little enjoyment I got out of the game, but even then it seemed like a poorly fleshed out afterthought.
And it's not just me- there was backlash. Even John Boyega voice his disappointment at the lack of "singleplayer" experience. But to me, I'm not totally sure that's the root of the problem. Sure, a campaign would be a great addition to the game, but I can beat a campaign in a few hours, maybe returning to it in a few months. What we need is not "singleplayer" content, it's "offline" content.
Consider Elite Squadron. It's an extremely ambitious game. It is so far the only release in the series that features capitol ships fights, dogfighting (in space and on the surface) and ground assaults in a single map. In a way, I think it's what the Infiltration mode in the Scarif DLC wanted to be last year. It also has extreme customization options (again, probably better than 2015's offering) and a really good campaign. It had great singleplayer content! But despite all those things, the fact that I couldn't play with friends on my couch meant that the game had a shorter lifespan in my console than it probably deserved.
What keeps me returning to the earlier games is the Instant Action with friends. It's Galactic Conquest. It's the random, crazy, non scripted battle events that made the game replayable. It was the power to hop into a star fighter and feel comfortable that the only person who might ruthlessly shoot you down was your buddy sitting next you, and thoughts of middle-school brats continually shooting you down before you could even see them were not even yet a concern. It was just offline fun with friends, in a Star Wars battle world. I want that again, and I really hope this new game delivers.
People Like Theme
If there's one phrase that gets thrown around often when discussing FFG games, it might be "Highly Thematic". All in all, I think that the FFG games tend to understand Star Wars, and are constantly striving to further their efforts in providing this thematic experience. For example, consider how the new Cinematic Combat (released in the Rise of the Empire expansion a few months ago) helped to make Rebellion's somewhat clunky combat more interesting, or how the Skirmish fixes in Imperial Assault are helping allow for more iconic characters like Vader and Chewbacca to be viable in lists.
Video games, like board games, have to be balanced. But developers should also strive to make their game feel like it's at hope in its universe. For instance, consider Pandemic Studios' (creators of the original Battlefront) Lord of the Rings attempt at Battlefront, Conquest. It was a pretty cool game, for the most part. Heroes around Middle Earth like Aragorn and Gandalf, iconic battles like Minas Tirith and Helms Deep, beloved soldiers like HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THAT THING?
In that picture, you can see two mages, one of the four classes in LOTR Conquest. One is frying an orc with some incredibly conspicuous blue fire while the other is walking around with his giant red mage shield like world's largest droideka. These guys were everywhere, and were just such an eyesore. They were fun to play, sure, but I would've probably preferred the game without them.
For those unaware, LOTR battles typically looked less like a Lisa Frank painting, and more toned down like this:
Anyway, a franchise like Star Wars is just as iconic. The gameplay still has to both look and feel like it belongs in the game. So, I can't help but feel a familiar apprehensive feeling when I see gameplay videos and it seems like almost half the players have those stupid arm shield things.
Hopefully they're not as horribly overpowered as they might seem, because I really don't like the idea of the game being totally full of them.
Anyway, I don't want to sound too much like I'm hating on this game- I am genuinely pretty excited, so you can expect another article sometime in the next month about things that I think Battlefront could teach FFG.
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- Thomas
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