The Star Wars Battlefront beta has been made open to everyone playing on PS4, Xbox One and PC today, and that means there are plenty more Imperial troops/Rebel scum taking to the battlefield on its three available maps, pew-pewing with their blasters and, if they’re lucky, slicing up enemies with the lightsabers of Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader.
After having sunk more than a few hours into the beta and reaching its level cap, it’s time to take a look at what we do and don’t like about the game just under two months away from its full release.
We Like: That Star Wars Feel
While Star Wars games in the past have come close to replicating that movie magic, for the first time ever Star Wars Battlefront actually feels like you’re playing through a scene from the original trilogy.
DICE have done a marvellous job of emulating the audio and visual style of the films and planting them in Battlefront, with blasters sounding exactly as they should, Stormtrooper animations emulating their movement in Episodes IV, V and VI (minus any of them hitting their head on a door frame), and its sky boxes filled with TIE Fighters, Y-Wings and other such aerial combat vehicles duking it out above the battlefield, making you feel as though you are a part of this huge, intergalactic war.
It’s a Star Wars fan’s dream, and it’s impossible to suppress a beaming smile as you wander through Hoth with your Snowtrooper, mowing down Rebels before hopping into an AT-ST as you watch Darth Vader deftly deflect blaster shots with his lightsaber in the distance.
We Dislike: Balancing Issues
With this being a beta and all, one of the main problems that will likely be rectified come its consumer release is the game’s balancing issues. Currently, the Walker Assault game mode plays out similarly to the Battle of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back, with it almost always leading to a victory for the Empire.
Walker Assault tasks the Rebels with taking control of two Uplinks which will eventually call in Y-Wings, with them then dropping bombs on the Empire’s two AT-ATs in order to bring down their shields. With their shields down, the Rebels must then continuously fire at the walkers in the hope of bringing them to their mechanical knees, because if just one of them makes it to the Rebel’s base, it’s game over.
Unfortunately, the Rebels don’t have much going in their favor when it comes to defending themselves against the Empire, with them having to activate and defend two Uplinks for an extended period of time whilst dealing with enemies who have an overabundance of equipment at their disposal, before throwing all their firepower at the walkers as they’re simultaneously being shot at by the enemy. I have yet to play a game of Walker Assault in which the Rebels have won, with it taking a level of teamwork on their behalf that is rarely possible when you’re playing online. This could quite easily be balanced by reducing the amount of firepower at the Empire’s disposal (they’re currently allowed to jump into the Rebels’ manned turrets, which takes away what should be one of the good guys’ major advantages) or by placing the Uplinks in the Rebels’ control immediately, but in its beta form this mode is a bit of a mess.
We Like: Shooting!
Fortunately for a shooting game, using the blasters in Star Wars Battlefront feels great. Due to them firing out little laser beams of death rather than bullets, recoil is mostly non-existent which makes its gameplay feel distinctly old-school, but in a way that stands to separate it from the likes of Battlefield, Call of Duty et al. rather than making it feel outdated. It’s a lot of fun, and though it may stand to be off-putting for veterans weaned on games featuring realistic weaponry, it’s nice to see the release of a competitive shooter that isn’t of the military variety.
We Dislike: Splitscreen Framerate
Star Wars Battlefront features no single-player campaign, which is a little concerning. This means that if its multiplayer isn’t frequently updated with new maps and things for its players to do, it could suffer a similar fate to Titanfall, which was a great game that unfortunately lost much of its audience far too early into its life cycle due to a lack of variety.
What Battlefront has instead of a single-player campaign is its ‘Missions’ game type, which is essentially its version of Horde mode. Only the Tattooine map is available in the beta, and unless its other maps significantly up the ante, it seems likely that it will be overlooked in favor of its competitive online multiplayer modes. You can battle against waves of Stormtroopers by yourself, or with a friend via online or offline splitscreen gameplay. Unfortunately, the latter option sees the game’s frame rate take a drastic hit, with it frequently falling below 30 FPS on consoles (we haven’t tested it out on PC). As such Battlefront doesn’t really cater to couch play, which means that if you aren’t a big fan of online multiplayer it looks like you’ll be better off giving this one a miss.
We Like: The Heroes
In Star Wars Battlefront II the heroes and villains felt like they were thrown in at the last minute. While it was fun to play as them, their inclusion didn’t seamlessly blend in with its gameplay, and though the grand battle you could conduct on Mos Eisley with them was undoubtedly one of the most ludicrously enjoyable aspects of the entire game, when they were placed alongside the Rebels and Empire it somehow felt wrong. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case in DICE’s Battlefront, as playing as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader on Hoth is a joy, and requires a surprising amount of skill.
Luke is the more agile of the two, able to hop around the map and take out enemy Stormtroopers one by one as he closes in on them with his speed and movement, while Vader is slower (though still more mobile than he is in the movies) and needs to be played more methodically than his Jedi rival, sneaking up on enemies before applying some crowd control with a Force Choke that can take down several enemies at once.
When both Luke and Vader collide, they can engage in a one-on-one lightsaber battle that, while not as fluid as you’ll see in the Star Wars movies, can become pretty epic if the characters are placed in the hands of the right people. If a heavy attack is attempted by both of them at the same time they’ll lock horns, and they can deflect surrounding enemy gunfire by twirling their lightsaber around their body. It looks great, and we’re glad that Jedi and Sith have finally been implemented into Battlefront in a way that does them justice.
We Dislike: Loitering Around in Starfighters
Unlike DICE’s Battlefield, players can only hop into vehicles by collecting a power-up coin places on the map. This means that throughout the duration of the Walker Assault game type, which is the only mode where player-controller vehicles are featured in the beta, you’re unlikely to see the sky filled with them at any point. In one respect this could be perceived as a good thing for newcomers, as without experienced pilots constantly duking it out, they’re likely to get more time to spend in their TIE Fighter before being shot down/crashing into a mountain as they perform a tactical maneuver. On the other hand, this leads to lengthy periods of time where the sky is more or less empty save for you, flying around and occasionally shooting at the floor, hoping to hit someone.
If you’re part of the Rebel Alliance, you’ll still want to remain in your ship even if you aren’t providing much help to your comrades on the ground, as when the Y-Wings drop the bombs that lower the shields of the AT-AT you’ll be able to knock down their health faster than those with their standard blasters beneath you. Snowspeeders can also hook a tow cable around the legs of an AT-AT and begin a little mini-game that, if completed, brings an AT-AT down regardless of its health level. This means that the spacecraft in Battlefront are invaluable, and even if you spend the majority of a round flying backwards and forwards aimlessly, you still shouldn’t hit that ejector seat button. With so few enemy vehicles to hit, however, this process can become a little tedious.
In Conclusion
Despite some problems, we’re having a lot of fun with the Star Wars Battlefront beta. It’s fast-paced and accessible, with it having an old-school charm about it that makes us very excited to get our hands on the finished product. DICE are going to have to ensure that it hits it out of the park with the rest of its multiplayer maps and modes considering it features a lack of single-player content, but judging from how much we enjoyed our time spent battling it out on Hoth and Sullust, they’re well on their way to exceeding our expectations. Now if they’ll just make it easier to be the Rebels!
