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EA Turns off Real Money Purchases In Battlefront II Ahead of Launch


Posted on November 16, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Electronic Arts has turned off real money purchases of the premium currency “crystals” within Star Wars: Battlefront II which launches in just a couple of hours time. Their brief statement outlines that the game is built upon player feedback and that in-game purchases will not be re-enabled until they evaluate the state of the game with the community.

This story is still developing. Updates to follow.


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Report: Battlefront II Will Also Have a “Starter Pack”, Includes 3 Rare Star Cards


Posted on November 13, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Right now Star Wars Battlefront II holds the dubious honors of having the most downvoted comment in Reddit history and for and kickstarting a conversation throughout gaming communities & tech press alike about the nature of progression and purchasing power within multiplayer-centric titles. 

If a listing that briefly appeared on the Australian PlayStation Network is accurate this whole shit show is about to get a little messier with the accidental reveal of a “Starter Pack”. No, it’s not a free to play or price reduced entry into the game’s multiplayer – but rather Electronic Arts selling players power as they begin their epic 40-hour quest to unlock Darth Vader. 

For the proposed price of $23.95 AUD (price subject to change, of course, since it was de-listed) you’ll receive a guaranteed 3 rare star cards of an unspecified type and 1500 Crystals for the purchase of RNG loot crates. 

Thanks to the thousands of people who came out to read my early Battlefront II review. I knew it was risky, posting a review based on the Origin trial and before whatever embargo EA has set for those who received review copies or attended a “capture event”. 

Here’s what I had to say about my experience with Battlefront II’s multiplayer after ten hours: 

“Locking iconic Heroes & other playable characters behind a hard in-game paywall that either requires the purchases of dozens of loot boxes or playing hundreds of multiplayer matches immediately sours the experience…. Don’t buy this game new, don’t pay full price for it, Electronic Arts are going to sell millions of copies based on the Star Wars license alone. Perhaps Battlefront II will also see “success” as an example of how a publisher should not monetize a highly anticipated title. Battlefront II has all of the psychological manipulation and shady practices found within free to play and mobile games and they’re asking you to fork over $59.99 USD for the “privilege”” 

Star Wars Battlefront II is set to be released on November 17th.. Unless you purchased the ‘Elite Trooper Edition’ for a premium, then you get three days early access. 

[Source]


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Star Wars Battlefront 2 Multiplayer | Review


Posted on November 12, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

A Word Regarding Review Copies: Electronic Arts acknowledged Broken Joysticks’ request for a review copy of Star Wars: Battlefront II but did not provide the site with a review code in time for publication. This review is based on several hours of play time with the 10-hour “Origin Trial”, which is too my knowledge the final retail code that players will experience on November 17th. I played the PC version of Battlefront II but the EA Access trial was also available to owners of Microsoft’s Xbox One and Xbox One X consoles as well. 

Update 11.13.2017 3:50 MST:

Electronic Arts have issued a blog post detailing changes coming to Star Wars Battlefront II in an immediate patch after the massive backlash from online communities and outlets like ours. Prices for heroes are to be decreased by 75% across the board. Below is a portion of EA’s official statement followed by my original review. It should be noted that these changes do not affect the time it will take to earn achievements that are solely tied to kill, does not affect the core criticism of selling in-game power via loot boxes and certainly does not restore any of the cut features from the first game.  I believe that my core criticism of Battlefront II stands even with the price of heroes being reduced.

“We’re reducing the amount of credits needed to unlock the top heroes by 75%. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader will now be available for 15,000 credits; Emperor Palpatine, Chewbacca, and Leia Organa for 10,000 credits; and Iden at 5,000 credits. Based on what we’ve seen in the trial, this amount will make earning these heroes an achievement, but one that will be accessible to all players.”

[Source]

Version Reviewed: PC (10-hour Origin Access Trial)

Coming almost exactly two years after the tepid reception of the original Star Wars Battlefront this highly anticipated sequel looks to not repeat the mistakes of DICE’s 2015 reboot while also sharing the pre-release hype surrounding upcoming film Star Wars: The Last Jedi. While Battlefront II‘s campaign is still shrouded in mystery, the game’s multiplayer mode and offline arcade have been available to Origin Access subscribers for the past few days. After spending a considerable amount of time with the final build of Battlefront II, what follows is my review of the multiplayer component of DICE’s sophomore effort – blemishes and all.  

Battlefront II’s grand scale combat will come as no surprise to anyone who played the 2015 iteration or any of their modern entries in their flagship Battlefield series. Two sides take up arms against each other over a series of objectives, boiled down to their most simplistic forms, the two games can sound very similar but BFII tries to distinguish itself from DICE’s other main franchise by introducing a couple of unique twists to the developer’s long-running formula. In a science fiction world where space wizards can shoot lightning from their fingertips, not everything goes according to plan.  

Game Modes 

The main mode that Electronic Arts showed off several times during the E3 hype cycle and last month’s open beta is known as Galactic Assault. Like conquest, it is still down to two large forces vying for objectives but unlike conquest in the Battlefield games, BFII’s Galactic Assault mode sees the map, objectives, and options available to either side shift depending on the outcome of several different stages. Resistance fighters might be tasked with stealing a shuttle or shutting down First Order communication arrays – this initial object does change depending on the map. Secondary objectives are determined based on the outcome of that initial push. It could see either the Order wait for stronger reinforcements or the Resistance falling back to designated defensive positions in the hopes of evacuating as many unseen NPCs as possible. These hypothetical situations aren’t exact descriptions of the situations featured on Galactic Assault maps but an amalgamation of several different scenarios to give you the idea of the scale that DICE is going for with this mode, without spoiling the surprises that await you on each map. 

Starfighter Assault is an expanded version of the dogfighting combat that was introduced in the last game. Returning players might be disappointed to learn that just like in the last entry – fighters are restricted to their initial airspace. What I mean by this is that there is no seamless transition from say fighting over the orbit of Naboo in large capital ships to seamlessly transition over the skies of the capital city.  What was teased in Free Radical’s canceled Xbox 360 vision for Battlefront III will have to remain the wishes of hopeful fans because it is not to be found here. 

DICE has expanded the selection of ships and the roles that they play during dogfights. In one instance while playing as the Original Trilogy era empire I was given the choice between becoming a Tie-Fighter and engaging X-wings directly, filling the pilot seat of a TIE-Bomber and laying waste to the Rebellion’s capital fleet or taking on the challenge of flying the TIE-Interceptor with its’ electronic warfare kit. Yup, large capital ships join in on the space combat this time around and provide large objective points but also vast set pieces for skilled pilots to weave in and out of.  Starfighter Assault retains the tight flight controls that made flying in a ship in the first Battlefront so fun while transporting pilots to large-scale battles befitting the climax of a Star Wars film or novel.  

Arcade Mode is Battlefront II’s offline non-campaign single player component and just like Battlefront I it allows players to set up a custom game with tweakable options to battle against A.I opponents. Several options are tweakable including the amount of respawns each side has, whether Heroes are enabled / turned-off or regular troops are disabled – which leads to some hilarious all out hero brawls- time limit and even smaller details right down to the amount of time it takes abilities to refresh. Sadly the multi-stage objective based Galatic Assault and ship to ship combat of Starfighter Assualt are entirely absent from Arcade Mode. This is kind of perplexing for two reasons: 1) Battlefront II had its signature mode Walker Assault and Ship Battles playable with A.I opponents, in fact, they were the only two modes available offline. Secondly, you’d think DICE and EA would want to put the mode they spent so much time, energy and money promoting into the highly accessible Arcade Mode for new players to experience.

Onslaught Mode is one of the key pillars of Arcade Mode’s customizable experience. Onslaught mode might sound like an objective based mode but sadly it’s not. It’s a fancy way of saying that you’ll spawn alone in one of the beautifully crafted environments and fight off an endless wave of enemies until the score limit has been reached. Battle Points, the new per-match reward for kills, assists, and objectives (which are then spent as spawning as special classes and any of the era-specific Heroes regardless if you’ve unlocked them in regular multiplayer while playing in Onslaught mode. This provides Arcade Mode players with an endless sandbox of enemies to help them  find the optimial strategies for murdering their opponets using Darth Mauls’ double sabre.

Lastly Arcade Mode also offers a ladder of prepared challenges in both Light Side and Dark Side flavors. DICE has matched up their roster of Heroes with environments that fit with their character but also their era as well. During the opening segments of both ladders, you’ll assault Starkiller base as Rey, defend the Mos Eisley Catina as Han Solo and defeat waves of Galatic Republic Battle Droids as Darth Maul. Out of all of the content found in Arcade Mode the Light Side and Dark Side challenges were probably the most enjoyable and they did bring a smile to my face. Rank one challenges are rather easy and can be completed in only a handful of minutes but once you’ve finished the entire ladder there are two more difficulty tiers waiting for you. Arcade Mode can also dole out small amounts of credits, usually about 100 per challenge on Rank 1, but these have a daily cap complete with a 20-hour refresh timer – YIKES.

EA Finds Your Lack of Continuing Payment Disturbing  

No discussion about Star Wars Battlefront II can really be had without discussing how EA and DICE have decided to monetize the game. A big deal was made during their E3 2017 press conference that there would be no separate season’s pass or purchasable downloadable content for the game that would split the userbase. They wanted us to know that they weren’t going to split up the Battlefront community again – unlike the first game which had a stand-alone version, 4 add-on DLC packs or a Season’s Pass that included the four DLC packs at a discounted price. A unified community sounds like an admirable and awesome goal for an online game to have but in the case of Battlefront II it comes at a great cost (to either your wallet or your patience). 

For the most part, this section of my review is going to be a discussion about progression, how it worked in the previous Battlefront title on PS4 / Xbox One and how the “progression” system in Battlefront II isn’t progression at all. BF II’s progression system is throwing you against a nearly immovable paywall to grind for minuscule amounts of in-game currency unless you open up your wallet and potentially deposit more than the price of the base game into EA’s coffers and pray you get good RNG. 

Best Hope Your Favorite Hero Isn’t Locked Behind Hours of Grinding.

In the first game, players earned Credits, an in-game currency, based on their actions completed while in the match. Just showing up and standing around or intentionally dying over and over without assisting your team on the objective would earn you the absolute bare minimum of credits – a small bonus awarded for completing a match. I imagine this was designed in such a way to discourage idle farming for credits and encourage team-based gameplay. BFII takes this system throws it entirely out the window. Now credit payouts are seemingly random ranging anywhere from 150 to 300 credits per match regardless of leaderboard position, # of kills, amount of time spent on the objective points or other measurable metrics. Any upsides to this brand-new system – such as new players and those without experience of the genre earning the same amount of credits as a seasoned pro –  are quickly discarded when you realize that by drip feeding players only a handful of credits (as opposed to the 1000+ that were common in BFI) EA can sell us all more loot boxes. 

Participating in one of the worst gaming trends of 2017, Battlefront II has not one, not two or even three kinds of loot boxes  – but four different kinds of RNG based loot boxes that you are encouraged to spend real world money on! There are boxes that will provide you with Star Cards (additional power-ups and statistical advantages) for your heroes, a separate box for your Star Fighters and the third kind of box reserved for Heroes. Oh and Star Cards now have the usual rarity colors assigned to them as well – from grey to blue and even epic orange. The rarer the level of your Star Card the higher your statistical advantage in a given category or the more powerful the certain ability that you’ve equipped. Crates are priced at between 2000 and 4000 credits meaning that they’re asking you to grind out between 15 and 30 games for the CHANCE at decent upgrades or part with real-world cash for an immediate infusion of cards. Oh and there’s the Daily Login crate as well, but as you’d probably expect, be prepared to be flooded with basic grey cards and the occasional green if you are lucky. 

Opening One of Battlefront II’s Many Different Crate Types, [Image Source]

If you’ve stuck with the game and decided “it’s fine I just won’t spend any real-world cash on loot boxes and stash my credits away”, be prepared for one of the worst psychological waiting torture tests to be found in a video game, well ever. In the previous Battlefront, you could spend your credits on a number of cosmetic options for your troop classes such as new weapons, playable races and even the option to be a Rebellion / Imperial unit without a helmet. All of those cool little rewards – yeah, they’ve been completely removed. In their place: Iconic heroes like Luke & Vader are locked behind a 60,000 credit wall that could take upwards of 200 matches to unlock just one of them. (Correction – the 60,000 credit figure for Luke & Vadar was true when this review was published. Due to community backlash EA reduced the # of credits required to unlock heroes by 75% in a pre-release patch.) Purchasing weapons for credits have also been got the axe – in favor of tying weapon unlocks to the # of kills performed as that class. Objective time? Kill assists? Helping out teammates? Nah, none of that matters as it is all about your KDR!! Want to play the Rebellion Assault class as a female Twi’lek like you could in the first game? Too bad, all of the gender & racial unlocks from BFI have been removed entirely and now base classes are completely gender locked for no discernable reason. 

Conclusion 

Star Wars Battlefront II provides a highly polished multiplayer experience that is probably the closest we’ve ever gotten to a cinema quality interactive Star Wars experience in the past thirty years. Characters are recreated faithfully; iconic weapons and starfighters feel great to fly and the rush of adrenaline and nostalgia that comes with buzzing past a Star Destroyer cannot be denied. The moment to moment gameplay, soundtrack and graphics are all polished & shined to near perfect level. Battlefront II had the potential to be one of the greatest Star Wars games ever, to sit alongside 2003’s Knights of the Old Republic as one of the few Star Wars titles that not only represented Lucas’ fictional universe nearly flawlessly but also appealed to fans of its genre outside of the weighty license it carries. 

All of the goodwill with fans surrounding their DLC policy, all of the love & care that obviously went into recreating the Star Wars experience so faithfully is immediately irreversibly tarnished by Electronic Arts’ monetization “strategy” with Battlefront II.  Locking iconic Heroes & other playable characters behind a hard in-game paywall that either requires the purchases of dozens of loot boxes or playing hundreds of multiplayer matches immediately sours the experience. Taking away customization options, earnable rewards and extras from players in the transition to BFII leave players with a multiplayer shooter that doesn’t offer them an outlet to express themselves at all. EA has turned Battlefront II into a psychological waiting test that you don’t have to endure, it’s not worth it for the fantastic moment to moment gameplay that is present because chances are some of the content you want to experience is locked away. 

Don’t buy this game new, don’t pay full price for it, Electronic Arts are going to sell millions of copies based on the Star Wars license alone. Perhaps Battlefront II will also see “success” as an example of how a publisher should not monetize a highly anticipated title. Battlefront II has all of the psychological manipulation and shady practices found within free to play and mobile games and they’re asking you to fork over $59.99 USD for the “privilege” of possibly playing as your favorite Heroes & Villans after hours of grinding. If you must play Battlefront II I’d suggest either subscribing to Origin Access / EA Access and only giving EA the $5 they as for one month or waiting a few weeks and buying it used, thus denying EA a cut of the sale. “Voting with your wallet” is just as much B.S. as Battlefront II’s progression system and it doesn’t work when gigantic corporations like EA aren’t going to even notice the lack of a single full-price sale, it’s a drop in the bucket. But by speaking out, taking a stand, posting on social media and other platforms we can let DICE & EA know that this type of grindy paywall isn’t alright.

Battlefront II’s economy may change closer to Friday’s launch or sometime down the line with a future patch (such is the way of “Games As A Service”) but that doesn’t excuse what they’ve presented to players now as a “premium AAA experience”. Should BFII‘s life stealing grind wall disappear I will update this review with a notice right at the top stating as such. While the gameplay, presentation, and mood are spot-on, in the shape Battlefront II’s multiplayer experience is in now, it isn’t worth recommending.


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EA May Discount Battlefront II When The Last Jedi Releases In December


Posted on November 3, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Star Wars Battlefront II isn’t out for another two weeks but thanks to a quote from Blake J. Jorgenson ( E.VP and Chief Financial Officer at Electronic Artes) during a recent inventors call, we now know that the publisher may offer some form of discount to tie into the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. 

Retailers dropping the price on AAA titles during the rush of pre-Christmas shopping is increasingly common, especially with things like Black Friday. Electronic Arts itself has a history of discounting their popular titles: last year Titanfall 2 could be found for under $40CDN during EA’s own Origin Holiday Sale last year. Two years ago, when The Force Awakens released, the original Battlefront was discounted to $40 USD during the launch week of the film. 

Here’s the full quote from Blake Jorgenson: 

“We will most likely discount the game like we did last time around the movie launch, and maybe you’ll even see some selective discounts around the holidays, either Thanksgiving or Christmas. That’s the way the games business always has worked. And so if you see the title on discount, don’t read anything into that other than the fact that that’s the way you sell games in the holidays.”

Will you pick up Star Wars Battlefront II on release day, November 17th, or wait for the holiday discounts a few short weeks later? 

[Source]

Edit: Headline edited to reflect the proper Star Wars film being released this year – The Last Jedi.


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Mass Effect Andromeda, Battlefront II Trial & Need For Speed Trial Coming To EA Access


Posted on October 11, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Electronic Arts are set to expand the line-up of free games on both Origin Access (PC) and EA Access (Xbox One) according to official-looking descriptions posted by industry insider Wario64 on Twitter. These reports were seemingly confirmed by other outlets including GameSpot later on in the day. 

The full version of Bioware Montreal’s freshman effort Mass Effect: Andromeda will be joining the vault on PC. Issues regarding the game’s facial animations and overall performance made for quite a lot of meme-worthy content when the game was first released earlier this year. After several patches, Andromeda is a better state now but this hasn’t stopped EA from putting the breaks on the series for the foreseeable future. 

Upcoming new releases Star Wars Battlefront II and Need For Speed: Payback will get pre-release trial versions for EA Access members. Need For Speed will get the customary 10 hour trial before the street date but no word yet on how long Battlefront II‘s trial will be or if it will only include a limited sub-set of content. The original Battlefront received a ten-hour trial on both Xbox One and PC before the full version was included in the vault several months later. 

Xbox One fans receive the full version of Dead Space 3 along with a trial version of the upcoming console port of The Sims 4. 

Here are the official game descriptions as originally shared by Wario 64:  

Mass Effect: Andromeda – You’re the Pathfinder, the leader of a squad of explorers, and it’s your job to find a home for humanity in the alien Andromeda Galaxy. Bring together a team of colorful characters, discover new worlds and unravel the ultimate secret at the heart of this strange new system.  

Star Ware. Battlefront II: Play First Trial – Play a part in a gaming experience inspired by forty years of timeless Star Wars’. films: dominate in rich multiplayer battles across all three eras (prequel, classic and new trilogy) or rise as a new hero and discover an emotionally gripping single-player story. Blast into hyperspace before launch day.  

Need for Speed: Payback Play First Trial – Divided by betrayal and reunited by revenge, you and your crew join forces to take down The House, a nefarious cartel that controls the city’s casinos, criminals and cops. Craft unique rides, escape the heat in epic police chases, and go head-to-head with other racers on- or off-road – all before launch for a full 10 hours.  

Also coming to EA Access (Xbox One):  

The Sims’ 4 Play First Trial – The smash-hit life sim is on its way to Xbox One Create unique Sims, build their perfect home and help them pursue their dreams. It’s up to you who your Sims will become and the direction their stories take, and you can start writing their stories before launch day.  

Dead Space 3 – You awake on a space station to find yourself hunted by crazed cultists and deadly reanimated corpses – and it gets worse from there. journey across the icy planet of Tau Volantis, overcoming the violent wilderness and an army of deadly enemies to save mankind from the impending apocalypse. Now the entire Dead Space collection is available on EA Access and Origin Access!  

[Image Source]

[News Source]


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The Wins & Fails of E3 2017


Posted on June 17, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Another E3 has come and gone and now all of the developers and publishers have packed up from the LA Convention Centre for another year. After a week of impressions, live streaming videos and major announcements – what games & announcements can we can put in the ‘win’ column and which left a sour taste in viewers’ mouths?  Here are three of the biggest wins and fails of E3 2017. Let us know your pick the for win and fail of E3 in the comments section!

Win

Michel Ancel Finally Gets To Debut Beyond Good & Evil 2

BG&2 has become somewhat of a running vaporware joke at this point, with 13 years separating us from the original’s release it is no surprise fans have let this one go. Ubisoft shocked everyone when Michel Ancel took the stage after a CG trailer that introduced us to a brand new rag-tag group of bounty hunters. Instead of the sequel, starring Jade, that everyone was expecting – we’re getting an expansive game with a diverse cast of characters like Knox the chimpanzee. In the most tear jerking moment of E3 2017 – Ancel was joined by the entire BG&E 2 team who were at E3 after the trailer rolled, for an on-stage embrace that will be remembered for some time to come.

Samus Returns, Not Once But Twice

Metroid fans have waited a long time for their heroin to return to her space bounty hunting ways on a Nintendo platform. After missing the Wii U generation entirely, Samas Aran is coming back to Nintendo’s consoles in two big ways: The unexpected announcement of a Metroid II: The Return of Samus remake for 3DS due out this Fall and the news that development of Metroid Prime 4 has begun with the help of an unnamed development studio that is not Retro Studios. Here’s hoping that Prime 4 brings the excellent atmospheric First Person Adventuring that we’ve come to expect from the series. With more than a decade of anticipation behind it, Prime 4 is going to have some big boots to fill when it arrives sometime in the future.

The Force Is Strong With Battlefront II

A gameplay reveal for Star Wars Battlefront II could have been a by the numbers amalgamation of pre-recorded gameplay footage combined with fake e-sports commentators but EA went all on one of this Fall’s biggest shooters. By bringing together 32 of e-sports most talented players and live commentators EA created a sense of authenticity and excitement for Star Wars Battlefront II’s first time in the spotlight.  Sure there were some cheesy moments like a commentator announcing “this is why people play Star Wars games” as two ships circle each other in a dogfight that contained absolutely zeros shooting but the smiles on player’s faces and the on-screen action told a different story: that Star Wars BattleFront 2 is a blast to play and even as a pre-alpha early E3 build.

Fail

We’ve Seen Sony’s E3 2017 Line-up Before

Sony’s E3 2017 press conference almost felt like the greatest hits of games they’ve already revealed in years past. Sure the Shadow of the Colossus complete remake is pretty cool, but that game has been available on two generations of Sony hardware already. God of War and Detroit both got new gameplay demos, but those titles won’t be out until at least the 1st quarter of next year if not later. The only true surprise was the extended gameplay demo of Spider-Man but that doesn’t have a release date except for a vague ‘2018’. It wasn’t so much that Sony put on a bad show, it’s just that outside of a few smaller reveals and the wow of Spider-Man we’ve seen these titles before in extended on-stage demos. They do get a number of points from me for putting PlayStation VR up and center in a concise and easy to understand way. Shame they didn’t speak the word, PS Vita, even once, perhaps the time has passed for the 5-year-old handheld.

Destiny 2 Was Missing In Action

I’ve already shared most of my thoughts on Bungie’s next FPS being absent from major coverage despite being playable on the show floor. It seems that the content that Bungie brought to E3 this year was the same sing-player mission and strike that we saw raw gameplay of during last month’s reveal. The only new pieces of Destiny 2 information we got through the course of this year’s show was a month and a half delay for the PC version and the expected reveal of PlayStation exclusive content. Sony and Bungie could have done so much more here.

X Doesn’t Mark The Spot For The Xbox One X

Microsoft’s job at their E3 2017 press conference was to convince both existing Xbox One owners and those of us who haven’t picked one up that the Xbox One X (formerly Project Scorpio) would be worth the cash. Thankfully they spent a good amount of time prior to E3 2017 detailing the hardware specs and capabilities of Xbox One X with Digital Foundry. Rather than dedicate a good chunk of time going over numbers that didn’t mean anything (6 tera-flops anyone?) – Microsoft had to focus on games that would convince viewers that Xbox One was worth the wait. What they delivered was… well… I doubt Forza 7 and the promise of Bioware’s Anthem in 2018 are going to convince people that they should pick up an Xbox one right now.  Microsoft showed a lot of games, but nothing really screamed “you MUST play this in 4K” – and considering the Xbox One X is $100 USD more than the comparable PS4 Pro without demonstrable difference between the two – it feels like Microsoft kinda blew it with the Xbox One X reveal.


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Search Your Feelings, You Know Star Wars Battlefront II Gameplay Looks Impressive


Posted on June 10, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

EA dedicated a very lengthy section of their four hour livestream this afternoon to DICE’s sequel to 2015’s Star Wars Battlefront reboot. This included an on-stage presentation and featurette about the group of skilled players who helped provide input to developers about the type of changes needed to make Battlefront II’s multiplayer a success. We also got our first look at an actual full multiplayer battle thanks to their Battle on Theed promotion.

DICE has made a number of fundamental changes to how the gameplay systems work in Star Wars Battlefront II. The most obvious is that units, heroes, maps and technology from all three eras (A New Hope Era, Prequels Era, The Force Awakens Era) are all present within a single match. Want to have Rey fight alongside Han Solo? You can do that! Want the Emperor to electrocute Jar Jar Binks, GO FOR IT (okay.. even in my wildest fan dreams we don’t know if there is an actual playable Jar Jar.) Power-ups and ship combat have changed as well – instead of picking up a token on the battlefield to spawn a special weapon, vehicle or hero, players are provided “battlepoints” for almost every action they perform . Whether you’re shooting an enemy player, blowing up a ship with a tracked missile or capturing an objective you’ll earn battlepoints for all of them – at one point during the livestream we saw a ship simply spawn and then crash into a building, and that player still earned BP. The amount of MP to spawn with a different class, weapon, hero or vehicles differs – so we don’t have a clear sense as to how much each of the specific types of purchases cost.

During the livestreamed Assault on Theed multiplayer match, which takes place on the planet of Naboo the Separatists (which include clone troopers from Episode II, the Rebels from A New Hope era and The Resistance from The Force Awakens era) must defend the palace from a large mobile bomb being escorted by the forces of the Galatic Republic (Empire from A New Hope Era, The New Order from Force Awakens Era). Matches on Theed are divided into three distinct phases: a large open urban area where aerial dog fights happen alongside multi-unit battles in the streets of Theed. If the Galactic Republics continues their push the courtyard near the palace gate will unlock, funnels ground units into a narrower space. The final phase of Assault on Theed takes place in the Queen’s throne room and is designed for full on close-quarters combat. It is quite interesting to see Battlefront II adopt three distinctly different gameplay flows and map styles within a single match, very similar to what DICE tried to achieve with the Death Star DLC for the original Battlefront.

Other interesting tidbits included the inclusion of Episode I’s Battle Droids and Darth Maul as selectable units after accumulating enough battlepoints. It was also confirmed during the match that both Han Solo and Boba Fett will return from the first title as Hero Units alongside newcomer Rey. With EA promising 3 times as much content as the original title and free Hero, Mode and Map updates for all players without a season’s pass Battlefront II should have Star Wars fans excited. Star Wars Battlefront II will be out on November 17th 2017 on Xbox One, PS4, PS4 Pro, PC and Xbox Scorpio.


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Star Wars Battlefront II Gameplay Reveal Coming June 10th


Posted on June 2, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

The world of Naboo will play host to the gameplay reveal of EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II on June 10th the publisher revealed today.  Starting at 12:30 PM Pacific time on June 10th EA will broadcast the world premiere of Battlefront II’s multiplayer mode with a 20 vs 20 all out assault featuring various heroes and units plucked from the entirety of Star Wars Canon.

Confirmed in the reveal post to be part of the Theed map include AT-RT Walkers, the N-1 Starfighters, Clone soldiers, Separatist Battle Droids and even Darth Maul. Theed isn’t the usual “walker assault” map we’ve become used too from the first game either – Rebel forces must work overtime to stop a massive troop transport from knocking down the doors of the palace before the massive transport vehicle unleashes all hell with its deadly cargo.

EA has partnered with several well-known YouTubers and Twitch Streamers such as JackFrags, Darkness429, StonesMountains64 and others.

If you won’t be at EA Play, don’t worry because EA will be streaming the whole thing live.


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