Earlier this month, the gaming world was put into a tizzy by the official reveal of Electronic Arts’ reboot of Star Wars Battlefront at Star Wars Celebration 2015. The new game is scheduled for release later this year. It will be a next-gen only title, which is good. However, the new details that were revealed for the game create some concerns about the future of the game and overall franchise. I am not ready to call the game a failure, but the lack of features in Star Wars Battlefront could impact the quality of the game.
The biggest issue: there will be absolutely no space battles in the game. For the Star Wars Battlefront franchise, or any Star Wars game, that sounds absolutely insane. Even Super Star Wars: A New Hope, on the old Super Nintendo Entertainment System, had a battle in the Death Star trench. How can a next-gen Star Wars video game like Battlefront not have any outer space battles? The lack of space battles sounds weird and very strange. It makes one suspect that the game is being rushed for a 2015 release when it probably needs more time for development. So, vehicles like the X-Wing, the Millennium Falcon and the Tie Fighter will be playable in the game, but none of the vehicles will be playable in space battles or space environments. In the Original Trilogy, it was rare to see those vehicles in battles on actual planets.
Another major loss for the game is the complete lack of a campaign mode. To be perfectly clear, I was at Star Wars Celebration this year. I witnessed the behind-closed-doors first look preview for the game. For the most part, I liked what I saw. However, it is incomprehensible that a full reboot of the Star Wars Battlefront franchise is so stripped down when the next generation of console gaming is underway. It seems that DICE is not putting its best foot forward, since Battlefront does not contain any type of traditional campaign modes that were featured in the previous Battlefront video games. The old games contained a mode called Galactic Conquest, where players could pick a faction and try to lead it to victory. Based on the revealed details, unfortunately, the new game will not have any type of Galactic Conquest Mode. A new next-gen mode should offer a great deal of variety, depth and replay value. That includes alternate gameplay modes.
Star Wars Battlefront is due out on November 17. The game will be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC.