Star Wars Battlefront was a fairly divisive game. Some hated it, while others found a lot to love. Others still couldn’t give a shit, and one man who I suspect was on LSD said it needed more Jar Jar Binks.
Whatever your thoughts on it though, I think we can all agree that the single player mode was poor. It was seriously lacking in substance and offered nothing of any real value.
Thanks to a massive backlash from fans, EA recognizes this. The studio’s boss Patrick Soderlund has recently discussed how the game was criticized for its lack of a single-player campaign, and also explained why it had to be that way.
Apparently the decision was an intentional one, in part so that DICE could get the game out in time for The Force Awakens.
This makes sense, I guess. While Battlefront is based on the original trilogy, I’m sure coming out around the same time as the box office smashing Episode VII didn’t hurt sales one bit. That doesn’t make it sting any less though – Battlefront was a gorgeous game that could have an incredible cinematic campaign.
Soderlund also revealed that he isn’t happy with the game’s average review scores (it currently sits at 75 on Metacritic):
I think the team created a really good game based on the premise that we had. I would say the game has done very well for us and reached a very different demographic than a traditional EA game. So from that perspective, it’s a success. Are we happy with the 75 rating? No. Is that something we’re going to cure going forward? Absolutely.
Looking to the future, Battlefront 2 has recently been confirmed. Soderlund teased that the next installment might introduce a campaign, something that Force Awakens actor John Boyega has been crying out for alongside fans.
Soderlund spoke of the “depth and breadth” EA want to focus on when building new games, and the importance of offering both a single-player campaign and a multiplayer component to help a shooter “truly break out and become really large”.
He teased that this would be a consideration for future Battlefront titles:
We have to go back and course correct that for another version if we were ever to build one.
And of course we now know there will be a Battlefront 2. I only wish EA had realised the importance of a campaign before putting out the first one.
Hopefully Star Wars Battlefront 2 gives fans the sprawling space opera campaign they’ve been waiting for, then. While they’re at it, I wouldn’t mind proper space battles next time round.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.