Battlefront II killed first-person Star Wars

It has now been seven years since Star Wars Battlefront II was released and delivered one of the worst game launches ever. DICE and EA implemented pay-to-win, and to really piss everyone off, there was also a substantial loot box system to throw money at. The criticism was so fierce that governments got involved and some of them decided to ban the concept of loot boxes altogether.

In all honesty, it didn't help that the game was hardly the best. Mostly it felt like a re-skin of Battlefield, where the weapons needed to be reloaded (ventilated) and those lousy Battledroids ("Roger-roger") could run around at full speed while rolling and jumping. In short, it appeared that DICE simply didn't know much about Star Wars. This was also manifested in the fact that they included severely overpowered heroes where a Greedo or Han Solo could suddenly come galloping across the battlefields in a way that Darth Vader never could, while shooting dead dozens of enemies. And the stormtroopers consistently ran around without helmets because DICE/EA wanted to sell skins with different faces - which pretty much torpedoed any Star Wars immersive qualities.

In addition, they had made completely unusable menus and invented a strange system where you couldn't play with your friends, but were randomised with others in a group who then got extra Battlepoints if you stayed together. I played maybe 200 games and didn't run a single one where my group actually worked as a group. The only thing DICE accomplished was to make sure to break up parties to make multiplayer more boring. On top of that, the giant maps were often poorly designed and never really fully used beyond certain choke points.

This led to a complete overhaul of the game's structure in a panic move after all the criticism, and the result was better than before. But not good enough. However, I gave the game the a seven at the time, and I think that still stands. And it also reached sales of over 10 million several years ago, so there is a lot of interest in this series.

Therefore, it feels completely incomprehensible that we have not received a third part. Either as a full price game (without greedy microtransactions where the game deteriorates in order to sell more), or as free-to-play. Battlefront III needs to feel like Star Wars rather than Battlefield, and instead of trying to mix everything, they should stick to a specific era, like the Clone Wars with its giant battles, and show the brand some respect. Perhaps the Battledroids could outnumber the rebels to make up for their lousiness, or why not just go for battle royale on big maps with a Star Wars theme?

The criticism of Star Wars Battlefront II, whose shortcomings I suspect EA had a large part in, was simply so severe that it completely killed the idea of a multiplayer-centred first-person shooter based on George Lucas' galaxy far, far away - which is a slightly bizarre idea. Because there are very few licenses that are better suited for first-person action than Star Wars. It could have been almost any type of first-person action and still worked. From a single player adventure, to co-op or full multiplayer focus.

Or why not go for battle royale. Maybe The Huts have a survival contest where people are dropped down to fight each other and the last man standing wins, or a bunch of bounty hunters looking for something really precious? Imagine a really big map in an iconic location with 150 people sneaking around trying to survive. Maybe you could spice things up by including computer-controlled Jawas, occasional stormtroopers, monsters, or anything else on the map that could add an extra dimension to survival.

Instead, we've ended up in a situation where Star Wars games have to be single player and third person like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws and the secret title Respawn is working on (which presumably is inspired by Dark Forces). I'm certainly grateful that there will be single-player games and not just live service, but I also don't like the fact that the pendulum is only swinging in one direction - which I suspect is a result of the criticism of Battlefront II. It was simply so astonishingly powerful that a whole type of game just disappeared, and that's completely unnecessary.

The interest is definitely there (as I said, over 10 million copies sold of a game that got more severe criticism than most) and the fact that it hasn't already led to something more is downright shameful. The only reason it wasn't a huge success was DICE and EA's greed and poor understanding of what makes Star Wars Star Wars. I'd suggest dumping DICE as a developer to focus on Battlefield, with Respawn Entertainment (who proved with Titanfall and Apex Legends that they can do sci-fi multiplayer) taking over, and I wouldn't mind Microsoft letting one of their Call of Duty developers do a Star Wars either.

It really is time. As mentioned above, it's been seven years since the release of Star Wars Battlefront II and one of the best suited and most obvious multiplayer concepts died out - and I think it's tragic. Give me Battlefront III.