Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (BETA)

Let’s start with the good. The visuals and audio are excellent – although this was to be expected. Once again, Battlefront delivers an engaging and authentic Star Wars experience. And I’m pleased to say that many of my criticisms of the original appear to have been addressed.

There’s a new class system for infantry and vehicles and each class feels distinct to play. Every class has access to unique weapons and abilities, each of which can be further customised via attachments or Star Card boosts.

There’s far more release day content, not only as far as multiplayer content goes, but a full single player campaign. There’s also no Season Pass for DLC – all post release maps and modes will be free. And what I’ve played of this beta, I have to say, I’ve quite enjoyed, despite the criticisms I’m about to raise.

Okay, time for the bad. The beta offered 3 multiplayer modes – Galactic Assault, Starfighter Assault and Strike. Galactic Assault, as you might expect, is the centrepiece of Battlefront 2, just as Walker Assault was to Battlefront 1. It’s the largest mode in terms of players and maps, with multi-stage objectives and access to a wide variety of vehicles and heroes.

I don’t have an issue with the mode as such, but rather the beta map – Naboo. This beta is being used as much to sell the game as to test it, so I would assume that, like with Battlefront 1, they’d lead with what they considered to be one of, if not the best of the release maps. And that worries me, because the Naboo map isn’t very good.

It’s essentially just a very long, very straight corridor split into two sections – palace exterior and palace interior. The exterior feels too large for the player count – still 20v20 – and the interior too small. You can spend the first half of the map running around barely seeing the enemy, and the second engaged in a total clusterf**k of grenade spam and laser fire. I can only hope that not all of the Battlefront 2 maps are quite so linear and uninspired.

My other concern is the viability of the smaller modes. Even in this beta, Starfighter Assault and Strike seemed oddly underpopulated – which was a real shame as far as Starfighter is concerned, because that was by far my favourite part of this beta. But just how many maps will there be for the smaller modes? And if they’re not very popular at release, will they get any post-release support?

My main worry though is multiplayer progression. You level up, but I don’t really know why, as you don’t unlock anything when you do. No new weapons. No attachments. Not even an emote. Individual classes don’t even level up as you play them. All you can ‘earn’ whilst playing is credits, and credits can only be used to purchase Loot Boxes.

These boxes form the micro-transaction model of Battlefront 2 – not unexpected, considering the lack of a Season Pass or DLC. Each box contains three random items that might be weapons, emotes, another form of virtual currency, or a Star Card.

And this wouldn’t bother me too much, if the entire progression system wasn’t reliant upon it. Levelling up should give me something new, and a new goal to attain. The more I play a class, the more I should unlock for it. But in Battlefront 2, you’re just grinding credits so you can buy random Loot Boxes, hoping you’ll get something useful for a class you actually want to play.

Because unless you do, you can’t level up the various classes. In the beta, I primarily played with the Fighter class in Starfighter Assault, but could only reach level 4 because none of the Loot Boxes I opened contained any Fighter Star Cards. Instead, I received a load of Interceptor Class Cards which boosted my Interceptor level to 14 – despite barely playing it.

It sucks and it’s stupid. There’s no other way to say it. Progression shouldn’t be randomised via a damn Loot Box. And what makes it worse, is that the Star Cards these boxes contain now come at different upgrade levels – and some of these upgrades provide an objective advantage in battle. Whilst you can ‘craft’ these upgrades, you need the other form of virtual currency to do so – which is also limited by the randomised Loot Boxes.

It makes Battlefront 2 feel dangerously close to a pay-to-win system, as someone could buy a bunch of these boxes on Day 1, get access to some top-tier Star Card boosts, and have an instant advantage over those who are trying to grind out their credits the old fashioned way. Progression is all about providing an incentive to hit the next level. Battlefront 2 has zero progression beyond randomised loot that may or may not be useful.

I did say in my Battlefront review that whilst the signs for the sequel looked good, I was sure EA would find a way to f**k it up – and this Loot Box system may be it. It hasn’t put me off the game entirely, but I can’t see the ‘progression’ system, as it currently exists within the beta, being very well received.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on Battlefront 2 as it builds to release. I know I’m not the only one with these concerns, so it will be interesting to see how or if they’re addressed.