Helmed by Need for Speed’s Criterion Games, Starfighter Assault mode may very well represent the triumphant return of skilfully deep space combat to Battlefront. I’m hoping some sort of team scrambling system will help prevent this, but I’m still eager to check out Strike’s other planned scenarios at launch. A slight annoyance I ran into a few times was when the First Order team was too good at securing the artifact, resulting in a round’s end in less than a minute. As the First Order, I loved the preparatory moments when slipping through the brush to encroach upon the castle’s entrances, Specialist snipers posting behind tree trunks to cover the brawnier Assault and Heavy classes as they flanked around defenders. Taking down a First Order trooper was a high impact action, as the enemy team would be temporarily down a man and thus weakened in potency to capture the artifact. Playing as the Resistance, I took part in thrilling holdouts and desperate chases after the artifact carrier through the thick woods. Its smaller boundaries spaced out a verdant forest edge with the imposing walls of Maz Kanata’s ancient castle, and its layout looked more organic than Theed’s ruler-straight design. The sample map, Takodana, was more functional than fancy. Strike layers the importance of strategy and tactical positioning on top of keeping track of the artifact object the First Order team needed to carry to the extraction ship to win. It stripped out a chunk of Battlefront’s staples-heroes, vehicles, large warzones-and slimmed down gameplay to a 6v6 CTF-style format. I wasn't sure I was going to like Strike mode. That entertainment value helped cut into the bland 'confident soldier' dialogue of the clone, First Order, and Resistance soldiers. The Separatist battle droids were adorable and brimmed with personality, yelping with childlike buffoonery (favorite line: “Goodbye, grenade!”) while cutting down clone troopers. It’s a fun spectacle for getting into the groove of a round, and DICE’s exquisite audio mixing is a great facilitator for establishing the grandiosity of it all. Frightened civilians and nobles bolted out of the way as droid and clone players alike fired streams of blaster bolts in a huge opening salvo. I loved how each Galactic Assault round started with both teams facing each other at either end of Theed’s central street.
How to the battlefront 2 beta license#
I get the aesthetic appeal of swirling clouds of leaves and fluttering flocks of startled birds, but most of those embellishments felt like I was being pitched into buying a license for the Frostbite engine instead of a natural complement to the scenery.Ĭritically, DICE has expanded on its talent for encouraging the excitement of plunging deep into an epic Star Wars battle. The city’s opulence and architectural quality is breathtaking-background touches like the immensity of the C-997 ships descending to the planet’s surface are great-but I didn’t much care for the density of particle effects constantly clogging my sightlines. To that end, here’s what I liked and disliked from the beta, including a few lingering balance concerns that should hopefully be remedied by November. SWBF2 is obviously channeling the casual approachability of its predecessor, but I wouldn’t toss its experience alongside the perceptions of shallowness that plagued the first game through its lifespan. I think these changes will stand as some of the best improvements. The distinction between being outgunned by skill instead of losing by virtue of who was spotted first is more clearly established, helped in part by the differing health pools of each class and the rekindled importance of nailing headshots to burst down a target. Each gun type brings heft and different spread patterns, and I had far more opportunity to tighten my shots with steady bursts and target leading rather than weighing down left-click with an unmoving finger. It still lacks the characteristic nuance of DICE’s Battlefield series, but trading concentrated light with enemies isn’t the dull hipfire-fest from 2015’s Battlefront. I particularly liked the added attention to accentuating the gunplay with some much-needed depth.