If you have even a cursory knowledge of video games, you know that last month Star Wars: Battlefront II launched with a bevy of controversy. The outcry against this game became so heavy that it wasn’t just IGN and Polygon reporting on it but even NPR and actual news outlets. Much of the controversy revolved around the game’s micro- transaction system and how player progression was affected by it. The vitriol around the game was so heated I elected not to buy the game…until it was on sale for close to half off last week.  I’ve spent the last week playing through the campaign and the online and I was shocked at what I found. Battlefront II is actually, ya know, fun.

Battlefront II, unlike it’s predecessor, currently has a campaign mode, an online multiplayer suite and an arcade mode that you can play split screen with a friend. The campaign follows Iden Versio, an Imperial soldier who leads the elite Inferno Squad. The game was heavily marketed as a story played from the eyes of the Empire. That’s true for like, the first three or four missions. As you probably know by now Iden doesn’t stick with the Empire for long. The defection doesn’t feel gradual and given the history of Star Wars, doesn’t make sense. Their ultimate weapon is called the effing Death Star, she’s presumably heard about how the Empire straight up bodied Alderaan, and she’s tripping off of Operation: Cinder? I don’t know, I had trouble making sense of Iden’s morality in this moment. The campaign is no worse than your average shooter campaign, with the Star Wars aesthetic providing most of the fun. Much ado has been made of the relatively short initial section but with the The Last Jedi content drop they added a few more missions that take place between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. It’s clear there is still at least one piece of campaign DLC left to drop.

My biggest problem with the initial campaign is that missions featuring iconic heroes from the movies feel shoe-horned in, as though an EA exec didn’t trust that a Star Wars campaign where you don’t play as a character from the movies would work. Also, given that the game is built on recreating and staging massive battles in iconic Star Wars locations, it’s a bit odd to me that the campaign never opens up to let Iden take part in a huge battle to rival anything the movie’s have done. Even the battle of Jakku, which by all means should feel huge ultimately boils down to small-scale skirmishes while a larger battle takes place in the background. If you’re looking for an iconic Star Wars campaign, this ain’t it but it’s still a satisfying enough romp through the Star Wars universe.

Now let’s get to the meat of the game, multiplayer. I derided the first Battlefront for being too much of an arcade-y shooter, complete with power-ups littered on the field. DICE made some solid choices to make the gameplay meatier, the weapons have more weight, the addition of a tactical reload adding a layer of light strategy. Instead of getting power-ups on the map, the player can trade in the battle points they earn to unlock vehicles and hero characters. I personally enjoy this system as unlocking a character, vehicle or enhanced unit is a solid reward for proficient play. Galactic assault is similar to operations in last year’s Battlefield 1. One team has 3 objectives to fulfill in order to win the match, the other team must simply prevent them from fulfilling those objectives. This is where Battlefront II shines, providing large scale battles that fully immerse the player in the Star Wars universe, especially as it takes place through all three eras of the saga. The photo-realistic graphics only help to enhance this illusion.

Starfighter assault is also an objective based mode but in space with iconic Star Wars vehicle. The dogfights feel superb and the sound design shines here with the roar of the tie-fighters and the sound of the blasters providing a giddy thrill. Achieving your objective in this mode is challenging and achieving a victory is hella rewarding.

Heroes vs Villains is a mode where heroes of the rebellion and the empire do battle. The hero on hero combat leaves much to be desired. For Honor got 1 v 1 sword fighting so right earlier this year and it would be nice to see a similar system implemented when you have two lightsaber wielders do battle. As is, it just feels like two people flailing around until the other dies. Being a hero feels great until you meet another one.

Blast is essentially just a standard team deathmatch and Strike is a capture the flag variant.  The core minute to minute gameplay is actually a lot of fun and I’ve found myself playing Battlefront II for hours just because I love Star Wars. It’s honestly thrilling getting into a ski speeder and dashing across Crait. I don’t even like the prequels but there is something undeniably cool about battling at Kamino and Naboo. I genuinely like this game a lot, it’s basically all I wanted from the first Battlefront. 

Yet, EA just had to go and get in their own way. Don’t let my enjoyment of this game let you think this is going to be a “microtransactions aren’t that bad” piece. The game’s progression system is completely botched. Microtransactions aren’t the problem, the actual system itself is. The phrase “pay-to-win” was thrown about during the all the controversy and honestly, pay-to-win would be better than the system that’s in place. What we have now is something that can only be described as gambling.

See, the game utilizes these things called Star Cards which you can equip to your loadout to get health regeneration, buffs for your weapons, cooldowns, sidearms, basically everything you’re accustomed to in a multiplayer shooter. The game distributes these exclusively through loot crates, which is the first problem. The loot crates are completely random, you’ll get cards for classes and heroes you don’t play or maybe even have unlocked. You can craft cards with crafting parts the crates give you but there are rare and high level cards that either take an inordinate amount of parts to unlock compared to the amount that are distributed or can only get through the crates. You can use credits you earn from matches to buy crates but those credits are also used to unlock the hero characters and certain resources. The economy of this game is stretched so thin that it makes upgrading a hassle.

The second problem is that the game distributes crates randomly. They give out a daily login crate but outside of that, crate distribution isn’t clear. Sometimes you get crates for completing challenges and finishing campaign missions. Initially, you’re stacking crates left and right. Now that I’ve finished the campaign and have spent more time in the multiplayer, the lack of crates and unlocks compared to the amount of time I’ve spent in the game is becoming apparent. I enjoy the game for what it is, the core experience is satisfying for me as of now but I can see this growing to be very dissatisfying. Yet I still can’t wrap my head on why anyone thought such a complicated and outright unsatisfying progression system was worth shipping out. I can’t quite understand how a group of people, clearly passionate about games enough to go make them, couldn’t see how unrewarding this system is.

Battlefront II is a really fun game. The craft and care DICE put into recreating Star Wars is vividly on display. The campaign, while not excellent, is still a decent amount of fun in it’s own right. Battlefront II is a complete package, this should’ve been a home run. It launched with a good chunk of content, with free content drops scheduled. All the game needed to do is make progression, ya know, functional. Yet it some managed to take the easiest, most basic element of multiplayer gaming and butcher it into such a misguided, convoluted and dissatisfying mess of a system that it overshadowed what was meant to be a mea culpa for the lack of content of Battlefront. Battlefront II is the game I wanted it to be. For the price I paid ($34.99), I was willing to overlook some of it’s very glaring flaws and for a sale price, I absolutely recommend giving Battlefront II a spin if you’re a Star Wars fan. The value proposition is there at that price. Yet, for a full priced triple-A gaming experience, it really drops the ball. I hope DICE learns from this because if Battlefront III builds on everything this game does right and removes all the bullshit, it has the capacity to be something really special.