Five things I’d like to see in Star Wars Battlefront 2017

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It’s fair to say Star Wars Battlefront has divided opinion since EA and DICE rebooted the franchise back in November 2015. Praised for its gorgeous visuals and authentic sound, but lambasted for a lack of significant launch content and an expensive season pass, the game received mixed reviews from fans and critics alike.

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by
Liam
Andrews

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@pass_controller

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Despite some flaws, Battlefront is one of my favourite shooters in recent memory and its sequel remains one of my most anticipated games of 2017.
 
While we know relatively little about the upcoming entry, it looks set to right some of the previous game’s biggest wrongs. EA have already said Battlefront 2017 will feature a fully-fledged single player campaign, something that was sorely lacking from the 2015 title, and more content in the form of “bigger and better worlds” based not only on the original trilogy, but on locations - and presumably also characters, weapons and vehicles - from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

This is all good news for those who saw potential in a rebooted Battlefront, but there are still a few more changes I’d like to see made.

The prequel trilogy
 
Arguably the weakest of the Star Wars films, it’s easy to hate on the prequel trilogy, but despite their many flaws these movies still gave us a decent array of Star Wars fodder.
 
The original Battlefront games weren’t shy in making use of the Clone Wars era, and it would be great to see Clone Troopers, Droidekas, Naboo starfighters, Mace Windu and the like make the transition.
 
With DICE having help from two additional studios this time around, hopefully there are enough pairs of hands to make it happen.

True ADS
 
As someone who almost exclusively played Battlefront in first-person the generic, semi-transparent targeting reticule given to any weapon with scoping functionality just wasn’t good enough, and quite frankly, was somewhat immersion breaking.
 
Give me proper iron sights and tailored scope animations in the next game and I’ll be a happy man. Also, it’d be nice if choosing to fly a starfighter in first-person wasn’t a guaranteed death sentence.

Conquest Mode
 
This should really be a no brainer; DICE’s premier multiplayer mode needs to be in Battlefront. Walker Assault, Supremacy and Turning Point were good, but they were far too linear and didn’t have quite the same grandeur of the 64-player battles found in the Battlefield series.
 
While we’re here, why not throw in Battlefield 1’s Operations or even Galactic Conquest from Battlefront’s previous iteration as well?
 
As someone who missed out on the original two Battlefront games and never experienced the latter mode, it wouldn’t be fair of me to fault the reboot for lacking it, but the idea of taking part in a Risk-style campaign across the Star Wars galaxy sounds awesome, and would be a welcome addition to any sequel.

Better integration of season pass content
 
The idea behind keeping each of the season pass’ four expansion packs in their own separate playlists was to stop an already niche community of players from becoming further fragmented. Despite the good intentions, all it actually did was serve to annoy those who took the plunge on the pricey season pass, as loading times that’d make even GTA: Online regulars fidget impatiently meant switching back and forth between the different expansion packs and the base game content was a gruelling experience.
 
A season pass for Battlefront 2017 is almost a certainty, but it needs to have better integration. If DICE do decide to go down the same route again they’d have to at least give players the choice of which game mode they want to play, instead of throwing random ones at us after the initial choice.

Don’t lock every new blaster or Star Card behind Hutt Contracts
 
Introduced alongside the game’s Outer Rim expansion, Hutt Contracts tasked players with completing three different weapon, mode or Hero-based challenges per contract in order to unlock new blasters and Star Cards.
 
While these contracts added another sense of progression to multiplayer matches and got players experimenting with play styles they may have previously passed up on, locking every single piece of new equipment behind them was a bit much.
 
Nearly all the Hutt Contracts were only available to season pass holders, so that meant if you tried and failed to complete some of the challenges tied to them, a significant portion of season pass content was actually inaccessible.
 
I expect Hutt Contracts will make a return in Battlefront 2017, which is a good thing, but for the sake of those that don’t have the time or capability to complete each challenge associated with them, DICE need to make sure at least some of the new content is available to use right away - especially for those who purchase a season pass.

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So, those were five things I’d like to see implemented in this year’s Star Wars Battlefront sequel. Do you agree? What other features would you like to see in Battlefront 2017? Let us know in the comments or over in the forums.

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