Star Wars Battlefront: A carefully crafted and dangerously enticing consumer trap

“It’s a trap!” Good old Admiral Ackbar famously cried out these words in Return of the Jedi more than thirty years ago at the sight of a massive Imperial force bearing down on the rebel fleet. In November 2015, this statement carries an interesting analogy; scores of gamers and Star Wars fans alike are racing towards the next big game, a title we have been waiting ten years for. It looks and sounds amazing, with gameplay that just about anyone can pick up and fool around with. It also runs really well with hardly any bugs or other obstacles getting in the way. They approach the highly anticipated release, eager to tear into it in time for Christmas, but the excitement veers off target and the “fleet” of fans instead enter an approach vector with Electronic Arts. Their business cannons are armed and ready to annihilate any and all sense of value, to exploit the massive anticipation for a new trilogy of Star Wars movies and impose their full control over all the Star Wars games to come.

This is the position we find ourselves in with the new Star Wars Battlefront, a title with gorgeous production values, accessible gameplay and one of the most bare-bones content packages to ever be released on this gaming generation so far. It’s style over substance from the get-go and is being designed to maximise the profit intakes at the expense of giving consumers a great value product. Shocked? Let me elaborate for you…

What is the most profitable Star Wars game of all time? Star Wars Battlefront 2, it’s no contest; the game sold over a million units on both the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox which were impressive figures back then. The series took players into the most intense battles and conflicts in the Star Wars saga yet seen in video games. Not only that, but it was also based in the first and third person genres, two of the most popular avenues in the industry. Considering that EA owned DICE, creators of the Battlefield series (which served as the original inspiration for Battlefront), there was no way they would let such a massive money-making franchise pass them by. As the anticipation for the Star Wars sequel trilogy began to build from 2012 onwards, EA got their wish a year later when they finalised a deal with Disney to have exclusive rights to develop Star Wars games for the foreseeable future. The company then moved quickly to take advantage of this hype and announced a new Star Wars Battlefront at E3 2013. Gamers everywhere grew incredibly excited; our imaginations running wild at what ten years of hardware progression could do to a game many of us played almost religiously back in 2005.

But sadly it was not to be; minimising the development costs while maximising the sales was EA’s top prerogative and this meant that numerous features from Battlefront 2 were cut out from the reboot. This was also done to ensure that the new game would meet the hard deadline of being released in time for The Force Awakens without fail. This included the clone wars, galactic conquest, space battles, character classes including unique units, numerous planets from the original and prequel trilogies and perhaps the most egregious omission of all, a single player campaign which proved surprisingly engaging in the previous title in the series. One of the things I enjoyed most about Rise of the Empire in Battlefront 2 was the way the simple story filled in a gap or two in the timeline between Episodes III and IV, not to mention being able to tackle it with a friend in local coop. Once the core features were announced, long-term fans were quick to call out the game in April 2015 for just how many massive steps backwards it took from its near decade old predecessor; nothing could be done or changed, the feature list was set in stone whether long term fans liked it or not.

The beta for Star Wars battlefront, which ran from October 8^th to October 13^th 2015 was the largest beta ever done by EA; nine million players all clocked into the testing and many more also jumped into the EA Access program to get into the game a week early on Xbox One. It was at this point that EA revealed three main editions of the game; standard, deluxe, and ultimate. The problem of poor value returned, picking up from where the stripped feature list left off. The standard edition was overpriced enough for a multiplayer only game, but the so called “extras” you got in the other editions were incredibly basic; most of these from the Ion torpedo and Han Solo’s blaster were items that could be unlocked after just a few multiplayer matches on the game’s release. There was absolutely no point in paying an extra ten pounds or dollars to instantly access these items, but that wasn’t the worst part of EA’s editions. Battlefront was also flanked by a fifty dollar season pass containing 16 additional maps, a grossly unbalanced and overpriced component which should have been included in the base game to begin with. EA had seized control of all content for Star Wars Battlefront, splitting it up however they pleased in the time leading up to launch.

This notion of control has swept into the base game itself; popular YouTuber Angry Joe has discovered there is no option for customisable private matches. Not only that, but every last server in a multiplayer only game is owned and controlled by EA, meaning they could choose to shut down the game whenever they want and force the community to move on to the next instalment. Between the sequel trilogy of Star Wars films and the countless spin-offs Disney has planned, and the announcement of sequels already in the pipeline EA could potentially keep going the same way with every new entry, all the while continuing to overcharge consumers for both the base game and have a load of content restricted to DLC.

EA’s true motives behind Star Wars Battlefront have become clearer leading up to release, and now that the game is in the hands of consumers, the most damning thought of all comes into play. It’s still going to sell millions (9 to 10 million units before the end of the fiscal year according to projections) because of how devious EA has been in promoting and preparing the game for an unearned financial gain. The game’s success is all but guaranteed and no amount of criticism for a poor value product is going to change that. You can’t blame DICE for this; they’ve been at the mercy of EA ever since the corporation acquired them in 2006. Why did Battlefield 4 launch in such a poor state in 2013? Because it was rushed out the door by a publisher cracking the whip to turn a profit; the developer never would have let that happen if EA had given them more time. Now they’re probably going to be pressed into making more of these games year after year. As for the rest of us, a vast majority will be sucked into the game easily thanks to its convincing look and the authenticity of its license. The game may play well and look well, but I can’t stress enough that Star Wars Battlefront is not worth anywhere near full price no matter which way you look at it. It plays on your love of Star Wars and endlessly boasts about putting you in “The Star Wars battles of your dreams”. It’s a trap designed for the common consumer to fall into and it needs to be avoided, despite the persistently growing temptation to buy into it.