10 Years Ago, Star Wars Hype Duped Us Into The Worst Battlefront Game

In November 2015, Star Wars hype was at an all-time high. We were a little over a month away from the first new Star Wars movie in a decade. The franchise was kicking off a new era under Disney, with inspired directors at the helm of a new trilogy and key spinoffs. Everyone involved seemed to understand the potential of making Star Wars fun again.

Star Wars was also making moves in the gaming space. Earlier that year, Electronic Arts announced a 10-year deal with Disney, giving them the exclusive rights to make Star Wars games. There was rightful trepidation among players. Considering how poorly the company’s other multi-year agreements have gone, another 10-year deal wasn’t reassuring. However, the first game announced under the deal helped this bitter pill go down a little easier: a new Star Wars Battlefront.

Not only would this be the grand return of the developer’s seminal multiplayer series, dropping just weeks ahead of the film, it was being helmed by DICE, the Battlefield studio. This seemed like a match made in heaven and a promising start to EA’s Star Wars era. Unfortunately, as many found out come launch day, this dream reboot was nothing more than a shadow of its former self.

It’s hard to talk about DICE’s first Battlefront game without acknowledging just how drop-dead gorgeous it is. Even a decade later, Battlefront looks downright photorealistic in certain scenes. Lucasfilm granted DICE access to actual props and assets from the Star Wars films, letting the studio 3D scan them into the game.

The results speak for themselves. Everything from the wear-and-tear of Stormtrooper armor to the hilts of Luke and Vader’s lightsabers, is recreated in perfect detail. This, combined with the powerful Frostbite engine (used for games like Battlefield 6 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard) used to recreate the iconic planetscapes from the film, DICE managed to make one of the best-looking games of its time.

The game also sounds exactly like the films. Blasters, explosions, and vehicles all have the alien hums and mechanical roars you’d expect. It was clear that much of DICE’s time was spent recreating the spectacle of Star Wars. Sadly, it seemed that was where the buck stopped.

Battlefront was completely devoid of content. It only included the original trilogy era. None of the planets or factions from the prequel trilogy were represented. More crucially, the game featured nothing from the then-upcoming films, save for a free post-launch map that looked exactly like Tatooine.

Speaking of planets, the game launched with just 12 maps, many of which didn’t work with certain popular modes. There were nine modes at launch, many of which were derivatives of the typical ones you’d see in any other multiplayer shooter. Maps also lacked situational variety. There were no space battles with battleships you could board like 2005’s Battlefront II. DICE didn’t even add the ability to fly from a planet’s surface into space, a mind-blowing feature from the cancelled Battlefront III.

It also lacked gameplay depth. DICE made Battlefront a much more casual shooter: movement, vehicle and weapon handling, and even player abilities were made much simpler than the average multiplayer shooter of the time. Battlefront played like an arcade version of something like Battlefield or Call of Duty, and that wasn’t something most people wanted to play for long stretches of time.

The biggest mistake, however, was the lack of a single-player campaign. This was a $60 game with a $50 season pass. And all that was there was the core multiplayer experience.

With all of these drawbacks, the only reason to play Battlefront was the sheer novelty of it being a shiny new Star Wars game. DICE nailed the look and sound of the science-fantasy world it was based on, but forgot to flesh it out with anything meaningful.

I remember being so wrapped up in Star Wars hype in late 2015, I preordered the most expensive version of the game ahead of launch. And over the course of a week after its release, my friends and I came to the slow realization that we’d been duped. We’d revisit the game here and there after The Force Awakens hit theaters, and again when Rogue One released in 2016. But every time we played, we came to the same conclusion: this dream game was as barren as the plains of Tatooine. Battlefront taught me a valuable lesson about pre-ordering a video game, something I haven’t done since.

Much like Disney’s plans for annualized films, EA’s Star Wars deal didn’t pan out. While it gave us some fantastic games, like Respawn’s Jedi series, and the underrated Star Wars Squadrons, consolidating such a beloved franchise under a single, unpopular publisher seemed like a poor way forward. By 2023, the deal ended, allowing other developers a shot at making titles of their own.

As for the Battlefront series, DICE made up for the first game with 2017’s Battlefront II. The sequel added all three Star Wars eras, a single-player campaign, more playable heroes and villains, and more modes and maps. Unfortunately, what was a fantastic game was marred by the most controversial and egregious examples of predatory in-game monetization. The situation was so bad, it prompted Disney and even a sitting U.S. state representative to get involved, permanently impacting the practice for good.

As for the legacy of the first game, Star Wars Battlefront represents a shaky start to an unpopular corporate deal. It capitalized on the hype of Star Wars’ big comeback, but delivered on none of its promise. For that alone, it's one of the most disappointing games of its generation, one that most people won’t even remember a decade later.