Looking Forward to BF2 Single-Player Mode? Hold On…

Posted by Bret on 11/14/17 at 05:38 PM Category: Battlefront II

Reviews are mixed so far. Gamespot has a roundup of many of them, so you get a quick snapshot. There's near-universal dislike for the progression system, but we certainly knew that already. There seems to be near-universal approval of the graphics, sounds, and gameplay immersion. But many of us are interested in the much-anticipated single player campaign. Would it be worth the price of admission?

According to Motherboard, the single campaign leaves quite a bit to be desired. Here are a few snippets:

In the story’s opening moments, Versio and her squad are holding off rebels on Endor when the Death Star suddenly explodes above them. It’s a promising setup for a colossal letdown. That moment—watching the destruction of a superweapon alongside the bad guys—is the high point of the five-hour campaign.

To the point:

It’s beautiful, dumb, and brief.

This is promising:

Palpatine’s secret cave is the Star Wars Holiday Special of Battlefront II. It looks like the Luke you know and love, but suddenly he's bouncing off the walls like a Beyblade and talking to goofy characters you’ve never heard of. Keep this in mind when you watch Luke on screen in The Last Jedi this Christmas: At some point he spent about 20 minutes flailing wildly at a bunch of spiders in a cave so he could steal a compass he didn’t know he wanted. This is canon now.

Here's my favorite. I might get the game just to play these levels:

You'll play as Lando as he runs away from lava and Han Solo as he hangs out in a bar looking for a guy with a beard (this is as exciting as it sounds), but you won't know why.

This is seriously disappointing:

Clearly, Battlefront II is relying on players to have information that's in the upcoming movie, or perhaps its novelization, but as a standalone story it is incoherent to point of absurdity and so far the most embarrassing cog in the Star Wars machine as reborn under Disney.

The review goes on to discuss the multiplayer experience. Gameplay is viewed favorably, but the loot crate system gets blaste, naturally.

Obviously, this is only a single review quoted here. I've seen others that have positive experiences with the single-player campaign, such as this one from The Verge.

Personally, I was at least looking forward to the single-player mode. Past Star Wars games had some great stories to tell, but at least according to this review, Battlefront II's story is incoherent, and you'd probably need some significant background knowledge from novels and comics to understand what is happening.