The pickups are strewn randomly about the battlefield - there are no killstreak perks other than earning points. Speaking of pickups, they serve as the only way to get certain items, such as rocket launchers, air strikes, and the epic-sounding implosion grenade. Heroes can drastically alter the course of the battle, because in the hands of a skilled player they can seem nearly unstoppable, especially with some heroes/villains such as Princess Leia and Emperor Palpatine, who can both summon health pickups at will. They have similarities, but only in the fact that they’re both team-based shooters that have excellent graphics and audio design. Some people call this a re-skin of Battlefield. Multiplayer being the crux of any Battlefront title these days, EA chose the right team in putting DICE at the helm of coding this game. No doubt we’ll see some balancing patches in the weeks immediately following Battlefront‘s release. You know a weapon is a bit too powerful when during our review event, when all items were unlocked, almost every player chose that weapon in their loadout. It has been paired with a fast overheat rate, however you can fire off enough rounds before that happens that you’re likely to hit your opponent at least once, which is usually enough to kill them. The DL-44 pistol, for example, has an incredible damage rate. Unfortunately, as of this writing a few weapons feel overpowered.
If your weapon overheats, you’ll have a brief window of cooling, which you can interrupt with a successfully timed press of the square button. So you never have to worry about ammunition, just overheating. There’s pistols, shotguns and rifles in blaster form - none of these are true projectile firearms, that it to say they are all lasers.
Weapons are varied, though not by a whole lot. Straight-up combat is where things can be hit-or-miss, and it all depends on your loadout. There are no options to create a game for yourself, however you can create a party and ensure that you’re in a match with your friends. Once the minimum amount of players for your chosen mode have been found, you can join the game or wait until the timer reaches zero. With so many people having already picked up the game, don’t expect any server to stay empty for long. Most of the time this is a quick and painless affair, but occasionally the game cannot find any matches and places you in an empty, or nearly empty, server.
The largest modes, Supremacy and Walker Assault, support up to 40 players, and the game’s matchmaking system attempts to put you in as full of a game as possible. You may not have much time to take in the sights, however, in many of Battlefront‘s main game modes. Each planet feels alive (or desolate, in Hoth’s case) whether you’re currently engaged in combat or not. On that forest moon of Endor, for instance, you can hear countless wildlife, and of course the cute Ewoks make their occasional shrieks when you scare them with merely your presence. In fact, if you find yourself on a nearly-empty server, taking in the game’s environment and ambiance is a treat in itself. Iconic sounds from the movies permeate every second of the game, from the title screen on through lulls in the battle. Combine the excellent graphics and intense audio, and Star Wars comes to life in your living room. In larger maps that include vehicular combat, one close pass of a TIE fighter or interceptor is enough to remind you that you are truly playing in the Star Wars universe. DICE has multiplayer battlefield mapping chops, put front and center with intricate, open maps that ensure no two playthroughs are the same.Īudio is also expertly crafted in Battlefront.
Whereas previous Battlefront games took iconic areas straight from the movie set, here we have re-imaginings of not only the areas seen in the movies, but everything else around it.
While you’ve seen a few locations in the beta, other areas like Tatooine and the forest moon of Endor are all impeccably recreated. I can say that confidently, because the footage speaks for itself. Battlefront is the best looking Star Wars game ever made.