As a rule of thumb, I don't review games I don't complete. That's why you've never read a review for Divinity Original Sin II, Nier: Automata, Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic, or Europa Universalis IV despite my love for those games over the last year (that latter game doesn't really have a "finish", but I feel compelled to play more before giving it a summation). For whatever reason, whether life or lack of momentum, those games didn't get finished and added to the pile of games to revisit at a better time. It never seemed fair to judge a game before knowing the ending or endings, since that can have a profound affect on how you consider the rest of the game (such as Silent Hill 2) or the game may develop interesting mechanics that I would have missed (like the strategizing around the rolling health meter in Earthbound). But I'm going to make an exception here.
It isn't that I haven't played a lot of Star Wars Battlefront II, the annoyingly titled second entry in Dice's remake series of the original classics. I've sunk a lot of time into the online multiplayer modes, considerably leveled up multiple classes and unlocked numerous of the game's Star Cards (weapons and buffs like perks from Call of Duty). I feel more than adequately prepared to criticize the game's multiplayer, which was the whole reason I bought it. What I didn't finish was the tacked on single player, which was added as a direct response to the first game's criticisms.
To talk about Battlefront II, we first have to unpack some stuff. Firstly, when Lucasfilm was sold to Disney, Disney inexplicably gave the Star Wars license to EA, which is just about the worst company to give a major license to. EA has shown time and again that they are not interested in making great games since the release of Mass Effect 3 (although, I am more than willing to give Jedi: Fallen Order a chance, since this seems to have mostly bucked the trend based off of what I have read). They've butchered The Sims and Sim City, they force developers to produce sub par sequels (Mass Effect: Andromeda, anyone?), and they're major entry into the online shooter ring, Battlefield, hasn't recaptured the magic of Bad Company, and was last more than mediocre with Battlefield 3. And this isn't just AAA hate, because imagine a Far Cry clone in the Star Wars universe by developer Ubisoft. That could be really fun (Far Cry 5 was a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine a couple of years ago). Generic, appeal-to-everyone games aren't my favorite, but given Star Wars is such a huge license, with such an interesting world and some interesting characters, even a generic game could be interesting. There is some logic behind what Disney has done. After all, Dice is a good studio that is unfortunately in the fold of a larger, seemingly antagonistic company. They have the technology, the rather fantastic shooter engine Frostbite, to make Battlefront happen. The original Battlefront was, after all, a Battlefield rip-off. But with EA comes unpleasant business practices. The first Battlefront remake was universally criticized for having few maps (three, if I remember correctly), only taking place in the Galactic Civil War (the original Star Wars trilogy timeline) and after (the sequel trilogy), and without a single player mode whatsoever (single player skirmishes didn't even exist), partially do to it being rushed out to release just before The Force Awakens. I was alright with most of what the Battlefront remake was (about a 6/10, if I had to conjecture so far removed from the last time I played), but its criticisms were sound.
Secondly, Battlefront II was released with all the different time periods shown in the films (Clone Wars!), and with a new single player campaign as an answer to previous criticisms, but it also released with a trove of micro-transactions that were plainly unfair, almost all of which have been subsequently taken out of the game. Originally, the game doled out heroes (like Darth Vader and such, easily the thing most likely to turn the tides in battle) and weapons in lootboxes, which should immediately set off alarms. It was plainly pay-to-win, that structure of some games where dumping money into a game is paramount to being competitive. This kind of structure is tolerated in certain instances (look at Magic: The Gathering, which is a great card game in its own right, but is technically pay-to-win), but usually only so when the entry price to the game is nearly free. Battlefront II cost $60 when it came out. Not only that, but drop rates for these rare but competitive items was insanely low, requiring you to dump more money into lootboxes than you probably spent on the game itself. The game gave an alternate currency to buy these lootbox items, but they took such an insane amount of grinding in order to attain that it was impractical to accomplish for even one of the items, let alone enough to be truly competitive. It was an absolute disaster of design, something that was not Dice's fault as they were pressured to do it by their distributor. While these practices have been long since taken from the game, it is hard to clean away that stain.
Battlefront II is much like its predecessors, both directly and in the series this is remaking. The primary game mode is Conquest, which has two teams fighting over control of command posts, as well as Assault which has one team escorting a massive weapon through a map while another team attempts to stop them, Flying battles where you dogfight in space ships, and Hero Battles where everyone plays as a hero. In comparison to the last game, Heroes and vehicles are no longer attained by finding icons on the map, but rather by spending points before spawning that are gained by getting kills, catching command posts, and even dying, making sure that everyone has at least some chance of playing as something with a little more oomph. As welcome as this change is, it is hard to really say much about anything else since it is largely what we've been playing in Battlefield for about a decade now (and that's really just considering since Battlefield 3, when it became the main competitor to Call of Duty). The general gameplay is fine enough. It is rote Battlefield stuff, nothing new or particularly different. There isn't much tactical strategy outside of "follow the hero characters for a push", or "use shotgun in close quarters", but that isn't why people play these games. It is about the chaos of playing with 40 or so players on the same map. The game certainly excels at chaos, and you can lose hours to simply throwing yourself into the grinder and make a lot of fun for yourself (or if you are lucky enough to get a hero, you can be the grinder). I had a lot of fun doing it, particularly when I wasn't sober, but that kind of gameplay is popcorn fun, and it doesn't last long. There is only so much of this game you can play without starting to get that distinct feeling of deja vu. Since strategies are virtually nil outside of getting lucky enough to pick a hero, getting better isn't much of an option outside of basic shooter mechanics, which can be done in any shooter. That's where the leveling up system comes in. Each class, hero, and vehicle levels up independently, and as they level up you gain points that can be spent on level-locked perks, which you can equip to your class. The same is true of weapons. It feels like more or less a replacement for the feeling of getting better at the game, to give you a sense of progress in a game that is incapable of doing so through gameplay and skill alone. It's trite, it's time wasting mechanics, it's the most base level of fun meant to burn away your passion for the game and replace it with a sense of familiarity and vague reward. It's fine, but I hate that it's fine. It's fine because it is standard, but it's a standard that has lasted far too long with far too little growth. Heroes and vehicles give some variance in gameplay, but not enough to make up for a lack of depth.
The new single player mode, however, I couldn't finish. It wasn't difficult, and as a matter of fact it was far, far too easy. Enemy AI is a joke in this game. AI will often get caught on level geometry, which would always trigger them to spin around and try and find another path forward, only to take the exact same path into geometry again. It was just picking off robots that couldn't even properly walk up to me to slap me in the face. It was dull, it was insulting, and I couldn't be bothered with it gameplay-wise. If the story was something even remotely interesting, perhaps I would have stomached it to the end, but it wasn't. The plot follows a military officer in the Galactic Empire, a special ops storm trooper whose devotion to the Empire is comical at best. She shows no understanding of political context, ethics, or a semblance of a personality. Her opinions on the Rebels is that they are prone to violence, and virtually inhuman. She's a recruitment poster come to life, and not in a satirical or critical sense. She's just slogans and hate for the violent Other. One could argue that she is meant to be a representation of the brainwashed military of the Empire, but there are attempts at personality far too often for that to be the case. She tries to be gruff, but feels like a kid attempting to impersonate what she thinks a bad guy would say or act like. She tries to act like a leader, but often times that amounts to her condescending those beneath her. Plopping us in the shoes of an Empirical soldier is a great idea for a campaign, and I can tell they meant well by this decision, but it felt like they didn't quite have the time or energy to put enough effort into this character to make her believable. I want to know why someone feels patriotism for the Empire, what it is about the Empire's ideology that resonates with a person, but what we get is the same flat evil the Empire has always been. I didn't finish the campaign, so I imagine she has a change of character as the plot develops, but the game never made me feel compelled to see that arch play out. If the starting point of your arch is cartoonish and without personality, than that arch isn't really much of an arch. Why would I care to see this person redeemed? She isn't believable as she is, so seeing her become believable (and I feel that is being overly courteous of me, as most of the rebels in Star Wars outside of Lando and Han are cartoonish good guys) is like climbing a mole hill. It barely travels. Maybe I'll have enough guilt in me after posting my first review of an unfinished game that I'll actually complete it, in which case I will make an update review, but I highly doubt it. I feel completely uncompelled to experience any more of what I considered unbearably dull.
All-in-all, I can't give Battlefront II much of a pass. It is a competent enough shooter, but I've had just about enough of competent shooters, especially when we've moved on to the battle royale genre, or the team based shooter which, issues as both of those has, at least there is some runway left in them. After a decade of making the same game, and after a decade of predatory business practices, progression models, and whoring out of licenses with little regard to building anything with them, I think I may just be worn thin. On occasion I write a review and think to myself, "I should revisit this game, because this opinion doesn't feel finished." Here, I feel done. I also feel the least objective I ever have in a review, and that makes me pause, but for now, this is what I think of this game.
4.5
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