James D. Wheeler

2021 Review - If the game had launched in the state it's in now, it would have blown everyone completely away. It's an absolutely gorgeous game. There's a lot of well-designed game modes that offer different ways of playing the game, so likely something for everyone. Singleplayer campaign is fine, but saying that it's the weakest part of the game is more a compliment to other game modes, both singleplayer and multiplayer, where this game really shines. My personal favorite is the Co-op mode, where 2 to four players work cooperatively against well-designed AI to conquer a battlefield that roams across a progressive series of capture objectives. All three of the Star Wars canon eras are represented, and players can target light side or dark side era-appropriate factions so they can focus on the heroes/villains they're working on. Gaining access to and upgrading the abilities of those heroes/villains, as well as the four baseline trooper classes, is the point of it all. And while there is the option to buy a currency to pay for cosmetic skins for the troopers and heroes, all of them are available through credits earned in-game, and the grind to get them isn't bad at all. There is no pay-to-win element in the game. (There was a famously controversial pay-to-win element in the game's beta period, but it was removed before launch.) There are still double and triple xp events regularly, and matches are still easy to get into, so those credits tend to pile up. Co-op mode offers a much friendlier way to both learn the game in non-pvp scenarios, but more importantly, to unlock the "star cards" that are the game's leveling and ability system for heroes and troopers alike. So there's no need to subject one's self to a long slog of getting owned by veteran players until you unlock enough of the game to be competitive. It's a perfect time to play the game, in other words. Shame that development of new content on the game has stopped, but that likely means a Star Wars Batttlefront 3 is in the works. Given the tsunami of Star Wars content headed at us, that game should have lots of interesting things to do as well.