What is Star Wars Battlefront actually made of? The heavily hyped multiplayer game from the makers got an early release for EA Access subscribers on Xbox One. I dove in to see what the game is all about.
Battlefront is, not surprisingly, a multiplayer-centric game. Everyone figured that, given that that’s pretty much all EA has talked about since the game was announced. But there is single-player, which is the first thing I looked at.
There isn’t much to the solo stuff, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they steadily tack on more.
There are five training levels:
There are six battles:
And there are four survival runs:
I sampled some of them. They feel like playing a multiplayer game against bots, which is basically what they are. You can co-op with a second person, though I wasn’t able to try that. The thing is, the game looks really good. Battlefront can get away with some boring missions if they’re going to look like this:
I raced through a few levels with a low-level character. The more you play this game, and the better you do, the more cards you unlock. Cards represent better weapons and gear. You can go into battle with a hand of three cards, even in most of the on-foot solo levels.
Here I am in an Endor “battle’ mission with a very basic deck. The goal is to rack up 100 points. I’m playing against easy enemies. You can ratchet that up:
This is part of a Hoth “survival mission”:
And here’s a solo “hero” mission, with me as Boba Fett. When you play as a hero in the game — think Vader, Luke, etc — you play in third-person and have some nifty, unique powers:
I played all the single-player stuff in the clips above. I checked out the modes, tried out different cards, played as famous characters from the movies. I wasn’t impressed. My initial impressions were that Battlefront is all sizzle. It looks great in screens and clips, but it just wasn’t feeling fun.
It has a pretty in-game diorama:
It has the most diverse set of default multiplayer characters I’ve seen in a game:
It has good visual gags:
But I wasn’t really feeling it.
Then I turned on multiplayer. There are nine modes to choose from:
I get trashed in normal on-the-ground multiplayer games, so I took to the skies for an all-fighter battle. That was a ton of fun. Here are two air battles, one with me as a Rebel and one as an Imperial:
I then dared try some on-ground combat in the big Supremacy mode. I had fun calling in vehicles and even got in a lucky grenade double-kill, but I know I’m no champ at this. For better or worse, it didn’t matter. I think this game just might support casual multiplayer gamers like me. Or at least I say that now. I’ll probably get slaughtered way faster as the player base grows.
What’s this all add up to? My gut is that this is one to avoid if you only play solo, but that it’s pretty fun in multiplayer. I can’t tell if there’s enough to the game, though, even for Star Wars superfans. There aren’t a lot of maps, and that could wind up causing the game to quickly grow stale.
Star Wars Battlefront doesn’t officially come out for purchase until Tuesday the 17th. We’ll have a review some time beyond that — and from a better multiplayer gamer than me — once we’ve played the game with a larger pool of players.
Did I leave anything out?
Comments
14 responses to “Star Wars Battlefront Impressions: Skimpy Singleplayer, Fun Multiplayer”
So gutted that there isn’t a decent single player campaign, with so much Star Wars lore to draw upon, they should hav been able to knock this out of the park.
Not everyone loves, or can be a part of online multiplayer.
Yeah, small kids and not getting to spend time with the wife until late means online MP is out for me atm. Its why I had to stop playing pd2.. kept needing to drop out of games, people get shirty or I got killed.
Well a lot of people do like multiplayer shooters, and that is the type of game DICE makes. You don’t see any complaints about Fallout missing a multiplayer mode. I don’t get why DICE are expected to deliver on both fronts.
A lot of that singleplayer stuff would be much more fun Co-Op. Also I think survival missions need to be played on hard…. In the Beta it was super easy, but I can imagine if they were a lot tougher I’d have more fun with it.
Can you play the multiplayer portion against bots like the original Battlefield games?
I think that’s what the ‘singleplayer/co-op’ mode is.
I don’t think multiplayer even allows bots to fill out a bigger battlefield like the originals did. Given the scenario-based maps and bog-standard FPS game modes… I’d doubt it. But I’d also like to be told that I’m wrong and that it has a little glimmer of the glorious chaos of the old games within it somewhere.
You can play the solo missions with bots – but none of the multiplayer modes allow bots. Online only.
Damn, that’s a shame. Well I may still look into it in the future…I’m just pretty average when it comes to multiplayer shooters.
Ahh but the game is also more arcadey and more forgiving than normal battlefield games. Grab a few friends and you will have a blast. Oh and one of my best team mates has a terrible kill death ratio. But has a great score per minute and win ratio because he always plays the objective.
Considering how cheap it is, I might look into it sooner rather than later. Thanks for the update.
EDIT….oops double post.
That first video makes me cry out loud when I think there is no single player campaign.
Multiplayer was so 2013. 🙂
I was on the Beta for this, do the vehicles still handle awefully?Are there still wallhacks?
the whole point of it mainly being multiplayer is that you would feel the diverse setting of the war. Not just having crappy AI only. its the way of the future with EA. everything will be “on the line”
i like how it has co-op though, cause me and my man play split-screen games together.