Star Wars Battlefront 2 Campaign Review
Who plays campaigns anymore?
Whenever I pick up a new shooter title like the latest Call of Duty or Star Wars Battlefront II, the farthest thing from my mind is playing the campaign mode. Like many other players, I typically purchase these games because of the online multiplayer modes.
Activision, the publisher of the latest Call of Duty, recognizes this desire of a large portion of its core audience and provides players the option to prioritize downloading the multiplayer section of the game first before the campaign mode. Personally, I have yet to play the campaign mode of Black Ops Cold War and doubt I’ll play in the future.
About a month ago, I wrote a blog on my experiences playing the classic Star Wars Battlefront II game, the one from 2005, not 2017, and it sparked my interest in attempting the campaign in the newest title. After all, according to my PlayStation trophy list, 53.9% of players earned the trophy associated with completing the first campaign mission, but only 29% earned the trophy associated with completing the last mission.
Is it worth your time? Let’s find out.
The story/gameplay
Star Wars Battlefront II’s campaign follows the story of Iden Versio, the leader of Inferno Squad, a special Imperial task force, who is sent to the forest moon of Endor just before the second Death Star blows up. The game has you mowing down Rebels attempting to destroy the shield generator protecting the Death Star, but, as the story goes, Versio witnesses its destruction.
You continue to kill Rebels for a bit, saying they deserved it for betraying the Empire. The following sequence in the story baffles me to this day for character development.
Versio’s commander commences Operation: Cinder, a ploy to showcase the Emperor and the Empire’s might by firing space lasers at planets, including her homeworld, a planet loyal to the Empire. Versio takes issue with this, defects to the Rebellion, and that’s where the story continues.
The fact that Iden took this long to realize the Empire were the bad guys is genuinely surprising to me and helped to create an unintentional lack of empathy for the character. The Empire, by this point, had colonized and razed other planets, including blowing up an entire planet, Alderaan.
Genocide isn’t anything new to the Empire, but because it happens to be her planet, now she has a problem with it. Ten minutes ago in the story, she was talking about how the Rebels deserved to die.
Future missions rotate between on-foot and space battles where you pilot an X-Wing, shooting down a solid number of enemies before the sequence is over. The campaign boils down to an extended tutorial of how to play the game, from blasting foes on land and in space to occasionally getting to play as Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren later on.
There are moments in the story that attempt to be meaningful where one of Iden’s companions is either in danger or dies, but it’s hard to get attached to any of these characters when most were introduced between thirty minutes to an hour ago.
Final thoughts
Star Wars Battlefront II’s campaign is six hours of running and gunning with some cutscenes thrown in between. There’s a reason only 29% of players who own the title have actually completed the campaign.
Gameplay became repetitive and I found myself thinking about how much more fun it would be playing the multiplayer mode with friends over having to listen to another speech about how the Empire is bad.
If you’re looking for an easy way to get some extra trophies, play the campaign, otherwise, you won’t miss out on anything important. While I love almost everything about Star Wars, I kinda wish I could take my six hours back.
