A LOOK BACK AT STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT BY JDHARBS
Some consider them to be the last great Star Wars games. Others simply label them as Battlefield clones and nothing more. What we do know is that this series stood among some of the best games of its time in both sales and online player counts. Pandemic Studios and LucasArts had a massive hit on their hands. So what made these games so special?
Circa 2004, the shooter game was on the rise. The once PC-only genre had started gaining ground in the console market with the likes of Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Halo in years prior. Hyped sequels to some of the best FPS games of all time were slated for release that same year, and it was hard to ignore the high quality of Star Wars games in recent years. Ultimately the combination of this brand and the hottest genre of the time would create a formula for great success, but it needed something more. Something to put it over the top. After all, Star Wars had already done FPS games before. What was going to make this one different?
As technology progressed, shooters were starting to put more focus on scale with larger and more open maps for higher player counts and vehicles to be thrown into the mix. Small-scale arena shooters were going to be a thing of the past soon. Replaced by more realistic combat sims on large battlegrounds. Battlefield 1942 was the culmination of this idea at the time. Releasing just a couple of years earlier, it recreated the most famous battles of WWII and let players fight it out over territories scattered across each map. Everything from vehicles, weapons, and soldier classes of the time were present, playable, and fine-tuned for a gameplay experience unlike anything we had seen before. What if Star Wars could have a game like that? Something to put you right into the middle of the battles that defined the series. Battlefront was born.
For the first time Star Wars fans could put themselves into the most epic moments of these iconic films and experience them from the ground as if they were there. The films that had captured the imaginations of generations of kids were now closer to life than ever before. How many of us had dreamed as kids of taking down our very own Imperial Walker, or racing through the forest moon of Endor on a Speeder Bike? This was the Star Wars game that the 12 year old me, and many others, had always dreamed of playing.
I was a massive Star Wars fan growing up. I collected the toys, had 2 VHS box sets of the films, Thrawn Trilogy in Paperback, etc. You get the point. It was all I could think about for years. All I wanted to do after school was go back to that universe I had known and loved as far back as I could remember. My world was changing so much. I changed schools that year, left all of my friends behind, and 12 was around the time we're all told to put our childhoods behind us and grow up. Things were changing. I needed something familiar; something safe.
Battlefront became something special to me. Not just because it got me through a rough patch where I had changed schools and left all of my friends behind, but because it was my first love as a gamer. All of us have one. That one game where you hear about it for the first time and it floors you over how amazing it sounds. You know you have to play it, and it’s all you can think about until it’s finally in your hands. Then you sit down to play it for the first time and it completely delivers. Maybe not even in the ways you were expecting either, but that didn't matter because you were hooked. Everything you had played before it was just a game now and nothing more.
But enough of my first world problems; let’s talk about what made this game so awesome.
One of the big selling points for this game during its media campaign was to let players experience the Star Wars battles any way they want. Now this isn’t exactly possible so they did the next best thing and gave us tons of playing options. You could swap between 1st and 3rd-person perspectives. We could change Star Wars history and not have the Empire lose to a bunch of teddy bears. Original trilogy battles could be fought on prequel locations or vice-versa. Heroes could roam the battlefield. Want to have John Williams’ iconic tracks play in the background? You could. Crappy connection? Play offline against bots complete with film-accurate Stormtrooper A.I. Seriously, these guys couldn't hit a Death Star if they were stationed in one.
There were a variety of different soldier classes for whatever your preferred play style was. Similar to the Battlefield series, you had your typical assault, sniper, medic, and heavy classes as well as a special unlockable class that varied by faction. You could rush in guns blazing or hang back and provide support with a sniper. Whatever you liked. It was your choice. It was this freedom of choice given to the player that made it more than just a game. It became a virtual playground set in everyone’s favorite universe.
Heroes have always been rather controversial among the fanbase. Some enjoy how they shake up the normal match routine while others claim them to be overpowered and ruin the experience. To me it really just depended on which game you were playing.
In Battlefront I, they were AI-controlled Jedi/Sith that slowly roamed the battlefield taking down the first enemy they saw. They were equipped with a deadly one-hit lightsaber attack, but they had to get close to you, which wasn't often on some of these massive maps. If you kept a close enough eye out for them before they spotted you then you would be just fine, but there was always that one that would be right around the next corner and make you shit your pants.
They were virtually impossible to kill since they would block every shot, but there were a few tricks. If you were on a platform, a well-placed grenade could blow them off the edge of the map. It blew my mind the first time I discovered this. It felt good taking down something I thought was invincible. I had much more fun taking down heroes from that point on than playing normally. I quickly discovered a couple of other ways to do it after that. Landing a vehicle on top of them was an insta-death unless you ran into the same glitch that I did where the hero would get stuck in your vehicle and destroy it.
I still remember one awesome moment I had when Vader slashed a Rebel out of his Speeder Bike at top speed. It all got timed so perfectly. Vader was going after another Rebel who barrel-rolled out of the way just in time for his lightsaber to come down and clothesline the biker. The bike went a good 20 feet by itself before finally coming to a stop. It was one of the most badass things I'd ever seen a bot do in a game, and I'll probably never see it happen again for the rest of my life.
Anyway, in Battlefront II they became unlockable rewards for the player. As if having heroes be player-controlled wasn't overpowered enough, they got a bunch of new abilities as well. They would vary depending on the character, but the Jedi/Sith could triple-jump, throw lightsabers, use force powers, and sprint across the map in seconds. Many players abused these online. Small attempts were made to help balance heroes by giving them timed access, but it just wasn't enough in my opinion. It broke the experience for me. No Jedi or Sith actually behaves like that in battle during any of the films. Some liked them though, and you couldn't help but have fun slashing your way through wave after wave of enemies. Others enjoyed the challenge of taking them down as well.
I don't know about you guys, but I loved the look of games from this era. 3D games were beginning to mature, but it was before everything tried to be super detailed and realistic. So you ended up with these simplistic representations of worlds and characters that were still pleasing to the eyes. HD remasters with better lighting and textures just look fantastic. All the more reason why Battlefront needs an HD collection. I want it. I need it. Just...gimme, EA. I'm calling you out to take my money!
This game also had a great sense of scale. Nothing beat spawning in on Hoth and seeing an Imperial Walker tower over you, or witnessing an epic battle rage above the skies of Geonosis as you were blasting Clankers down below. These things were crucial to immersing the player in a Star Wars battle, and would have derailed the experience had they been absent.
All of the maps remained true to the film environments as best they could, but were ultimately altered for gameplay purposes. Important structures and areas to those environments were recreated with detail while other parts simply felt like they were thrown in. Granted, it is difficult to recreate something that is imaginary and brought to life through Hollywood magic, but I think they did a decent job. They were fun to play on and that was all that mattered at the end of the day.
The UI, HUD, and menus were sleek as well. They were vibrant and colorful. That loading screen was God-tier. Then the sequel just completely threw all of this away. Granted, it made some small improvements in these areas, but many hair-pullers. Everything felt a little darker and washed out. I feel like it was trying to mimic the tone of Episode III. The nice hologram background in the menu was replaced by clips from the films on consoles and a simple 2D image on PC. The HUD became streamlined including a universal reticle for all weapons, and the vehicle cockpits were completely tossed. Just...no! These changes felt like an unnecessary downgrade. I dealt with it, but they still irk me to this day.
The PC ports of the Battlefront series have seen a great modding community rise around them over the years. Sites like SWBFGamers, GameToast, and FileFront still have an active community churning out new content for a decade old game. All 3 offer a great archive of mods built throughout the years, but some can only be found on a specific site so you might have to dig a little to find the one you want. Everything from balancing tweaks to new character skins/models to resolution changers are available, but the most sought-after ones are the maps.
Many locations from the films were left out of the games and had to be recreated by the community. So many have been made now that if you name a location from the films then you'll likely find a map for it. The underwater city of Otoh Gunga, the Death Star trench run, the Queen's Palace on Naboo, etc. They're all there and more.
Some modders even took it upon themselves to recreate the stock maps to be more accurate to the film locations, or port maps across both games. For you Steam users who can only access Battlefront II, I highly recommend the Conversion Pack mod to import all of Battlefront 1's maps into the game. It also added KotOR factions and locations into the mix, a custom campaign, new modes, and the community-built 1.3 patch with other extra features like a console and free cam. Even though it’s just a collection of previously made mods, it’s still one of the best packages out there for any game. A must-download.
Now I've talked a lot of what I loved about Battlefront, but no game is perfect. They had their fair share of bugs, glitches, and design problems. In Battlefront I, the lag online would be unbearable at times. Battlefront II improved this, but it still had its fair share of issues. I usually couldn't get through a match without that little connection warning showing up at least once. It led me to spend most of my time offline against bots, but that excruciating bot A.I. didn’t help.
The campaign just wasn't a campaign either. You were literally just playing matches in chronological order. Occasionally, you would get a map that was tweaked from its multiplayer counterpart to be more like the film's battle. The early Episode I battles on Naboo swapped out Clones for Theed's Royal Guards and Gungans complete with a Fambaas carrying a shield generator on its back. I never quite understood why you weren't given the option to play them elsewhere.
Some of the maps were just poorly designed as well with the worst culprit being Kashyyyk: Docks. Any Droideka that tried to cross the water at the beginning of the match would get destroyed because they were shorter than the water level in ball mode. The A.I. was too stupid to figure it out and the map gave no alternate routes to cross either so reinforcements drained quickly for an easy Republic victory.
Battlefront II is the game everyone will remember the most. The one that was consistently among the top of LiVE charts, and just about everyone has now since its $5 every Steam sale. It released just over a year after the first title. The same day that Episode III was hitting DVD shelves. In some areas it was an improvement while others felt like a downgrade. I've already outlined some of these in prior sections. Overall, it was simply a refined version of the first game which is all you can really expect it to be, but most of them seemed to break the experience for me.
New power-ups would have effects emit from the player to show enemies when they were activated. I don't know about you guys, but I had a hard time immersing myself in a Star Wars battle when soldiers were running around with red lighting all over them. Thankfully, I was able to mod them out later. The focus was placed much higher on the Clone Wars era too with lots of Episode III locations being added in while the Original Trilogy only saw 3 with some from SWBF1 being removed.
I think I've been hating a lot on the sequel throughout this though. I enjoyed the game, own 2 copies, and have poured hundreds of hours into it over the years. The campaign was a nice improvement taking players through the saga from the perspective of the Clones. The core mechanics and controls felt much more responsive and refined. Having more game modes to play than just Conquest was nice, and improving the A.I. and graphics were no-brainers.
The improved Galactic Conquest mode was my favorite addition. Players could essentially wage their own war across the galaxy moving fleets from planet to planet until enemies met and launched a battle. Winning battles earned you credits which you could spend on new fleets and upgrades. Skilled opponents could take days to finally finish. It was fun, but could get repetitive after 10 space battles in a row before finally meeting on a planet. Space Battles were a big selling point for the game, but felt much less refined compared to the ground battles and it didn't help that some of the more famous ones like the Battle of Yavin weren't included.
The game also saw a PSP release eventually being followed by a couple of sequels, Renegade Squadron and Elite Squadron, by Rebellion. However, these were more watered-down experiences compared to the main titles due to the PSP's hardware limitations. I don’t even want to talk about the mobile games so let’s talk about Battlefront III instead. This topic alone could have an entire thread dedicated to itself so I'll keep it brief.
Next year will mark the 10 year anniversary of Battlefront II, the last major title in the series, and the same year *crosses fingers* we'll finally get our hands on DICE's reboot of the series. To put it into perspective, that's twice as long as the current wait for The Last Guardian, 3 years longer than Half-Life 3, and a time span that has seen 2 generations of consoles release. If I had told someone in 2005 that it was going to be a decade before they could play the next Battlefront, I honestly think they would’ve laughed in my face. It was too successful of a series for arguably the biggest brand on the planet that had seen releases in back-to-back years. This series was on track to be milked for quite some time.
As you all probably know, Battlefront III never happened and we still don't know the specifics of why. What we do know is that Haze developers Free Radical were working on the sequel, but the project had setbacks and never finished. Throughout the years we've seen leaked footage and personal accounts from both sides of story, but it’s all just finger pointing. Free Radical claimed it to be 99.9% complete before LucasArts pulled the plug while LucasArts claimed Free Radical missed milestones frequently and bloated the budget. Despite whose fault it truly was, it was a missed opportunity for both sides. Eventually we learned of an online-only title as well called Battlefront Online being developed by the SOCOM team, Slant Six Games, but it was cancelled before we heard anything more.
With more and more studios failing to create a product of their approval, LucasArts decided to take things upon themselves. Soon the world got its first look at Star Wars First Assault, the successor to the Battlefront series. It was planned to be a downloadable XBLA title for the 360 featuring Call of Duty-like FPS multiplayer set in the Star Wars universe. It looked nearly finished from the leaked footage with more features present with each leak, but bad luck struck again. The Disney acquisition of LucasFilm became official, and shortly after LucasArts would be no more.
I'm sure you will agree with me that this industry has never seen another series be plagued with more bad luck than this one. Many fans just couldn't take it and have simply moved on without looking back. It was too difficult to keep getting hopes up only to be disappointed again and again.
Now we have looked away from our past and on to the horizon, to the future, with great uncertainty. So much has changed. LucasArts and Pandemic as we knew them are no more. Disney now has control over the Star Wars universe and they have placed the games in EA's hands.
At first DICE seemed like the perfect choice to take the reins. After all, without them Battlefront probably wouldn't exist, but the rocky release of Battlefield 4 soon deflated our hype. Were they the right choice after all? Will it be plagued by issues? Are they just going to put a Star Wars skin on their own series? It has been well over a year now since the internet blew up over the news that Battlefront would finally return, and we still can't answer these questions just yet. We could speculate all we want, and many have been, but in the end it’s all just talk until we finally see the game in action this spring.
What makes me nervous the most is the rumored summer 2015 release. Even if development began shortly after Disney's deal with EA was official, the project would barely have 2 years to finish. This just doesn't seem like enough for a triple-A release even if it is being made by an experienced team. I'm actually quite hopeful for a delay into 2016 which is saying something considering how long I've been waiting for this game. For a title that has been so anticipated for nearly a decade now, the last thing we need is a repeat of Battlefield 4 to happen. I couldn't even begin to explain just how much that would crush this fanbase after all it’s been through. The pressure is on, and I'm sure DICE knows it.
They now have a decade of expectations being placed on their shoulders. This is something that no developer enjoys working with or can ever live up to. Let's face it, the game that you have envisioned playing for the last 10 years isn't going to happen. Everyone's vision is different, and only one can come true. Expectations are what turn a good game into a bad game simply because it wasn't a great game. Enjoy it for what it is instead of what it could have been, but I know this is difficult for gamers when everything in this industry is judged according to hype. Regardless if the force is strong with this one or if it’s a trap, I will be there in line at midnight on Day 1 to support the series that I don’t want to see lost in time again, and I cannot wait.
