So far I am quite pleased with this game. I played the hell out of the first one, so I knew far in advance that I would be wanting to try this one out. Despite all of the controversy around the in-game credits, I didn't feel I was affected by it in any way shape or form.

For those not familiar, there was quite the uproar when it was discovered that Electronic Arts had made microtransactions a very core component of Battlefront II. They can be used to purchase "loot boxes," but with real money. This of course speeds up progression in the game quite a bit. However, everyone failed to remember that these loot boxes can be acquired without purchasing any. Who cares?



As usual with DICE's new games, you can see some improvements in the Frostbite engine's capabilities. The graphics look great and you can see some of their lighting expertise come through which is always a winner for me. In the cutscenes the character models (especially the faces), animation, textures, and lighting all look nearly photorealistic in some areas. I understand these are pre-rendered but they still look awesome. You can see some of my screenshots of what the game looks like in the Images area.



Also a recurring theme in DICE's games, the audio is superb. Not only is the voice acting very believable and fitting for the Star Wars franchise, but the sound effects are also impressive. DICE has been at this high of an audio production level for some years now, but it never gets old. Highly recommend good headphones, preferably surround sound enabled.



A very welcome addition to this sequel was the new campaign mode. I very much so enjoyed it. I was impressed by how Star Wars-y it felt. I think a lot of credit for this is owed to the voice actors. Plus, it was pretty cool that it filled in some gaps in the Star Wars canon in between Episodes VI & VII. I played all the way through the "base" campaign and also through this first season of new content, Resurrection. It was super cool to play as Iden when she was older. I also loved how they actually got Adam Driver to do Kylo Ren's voice. At least, it definitely sounded like him! He made a pretty cool appearance in the new content. This is another thing that is cool...EA/DICE decided to ditch the season pass model with this game and are instead basically giving away a year's worth of content for this game so that the entire player base can keep playing and enjoying the game. I think that's totally worth a mention!



The multiplayer is fun, and launched with five different modes. There is a wide variety of maps to play on. After about 13 hours of gameplay I don't think I have been rotated on every map yet. It's probably safe to assume DICE will be releasing several expansion packs for this game, which will only make the quantity of content go up further. That is one of the other big strengths of this game besides the campaign mode: more content.

I will add more and update this review as I spend some more time with Battlefront.