Star Wars Battlefront: Serious Concerns for Franchise Reboot

1 min


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.


7 Comments

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  1. You seem to be forgetting the fact that crafted missions that can be played solo, split screen and online co-op are taking the place of the campaign. Have you not played Battlefield? DICE has proven twice that they can't make a good campaign, so it is better to not have it than to have one and risk it being garbage. The people who liked space battles are a minority in the battlefront community. Most hated it, out of all of the people I've talked to, the majority didn't like space battles as they got boring and repetitive. It's sad really, when it isn't even E3 and you all are jumping to conclusions.

  2. No one is jumping to conclusions, these are facts from the developers. Instant action was great, but galactic conquest was so much more. Also wtf are the cis and republic factions? I get that its being released with the new movie but damn, thats a whole era of time we won't get to see. I also see how space battles would be come boring on the old game, but what people loved about it was the concept in which it was executed. Dice could have totally expanded on that in a rush type gameplay mode easily. Ever play carrier battles on bf4? Same idea

  3. Which is why I came up with a consolation. DICE focuses on ground and in-atmosphere aerial combat while EA brings back Rogue Squadron and leaves the space combat to that, but adds a multiplayer component. I understand people are upset, but it's too soon. Wait until E3, wait until you actually get gameplay. And most of the devs have been rather vague in their responses.

  4. Well no I'm not insane and that's your friends, they would still be considered apart of the minority. As I said in my previous reply to Spencer, instead of putting them into Battlefront and it possibly not go well, bring back rogue squadron (a game heavily built around aerial and space combat and add a multiplayer component to it. And for the love of god, hire someone else to do the story while DICE works on the combat and multiplayer. Battlefront II was heavily criticized for the space battles alone.

  5. Where are you getting that space battles were played by the minority of gamers? Anyone ive talked too about the game never fails to mention the space battles, because the next big thing was supposed to be space to land battles with seamless transition. Its not called "Land Wars" or "Sky Wars" for a reason. I should be able to claim that EA didn't deliver on their game due to the fact there are no actual "Star Wars" going on

Jeffrey Harris
Jeffrey Harris, a pop-culture, entertainment, and video game journalist and aficionado, resides in Los Angeles. He is a staff writer for games, movies/TV, MMA and Wrestling and contributor to Popgeeks.net and Toonzone.net. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin's Radio, TV, Film program.
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