It’s no secret that the launch ofStar Wars: Battlefront 2was a complete disaster for EA, DICE, and fans of the franchise, with lasting effects on the video game industry as a whole. The game’s marketing wildly missold the story and quality of the single-player campaign, multiplayer was incredibly unbalanced and required dozens of hours of grinding to unlock heroes, and the gamewas riddled with loot boxes, so much so that it became a legal issue.Star Wars: Battlefront 2still managed to sell millions, and became another commercial success for EA, but the player base quickly moved on to the next big thing.
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Resurrection Campaign
The first major update forStar Wars: Battlefront 2came less than a month after launch, tie-ing in with the release of the latest film in the series,Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Finn and Captain Plasma were added as new playable heroes, as well as a new Crait map, vehicles, and more. However, it was the promise of more campaign missions that most fans were holding out for. The base campaign forStar Wars: Battlefront 2was a pretty big letdown for a lot of players, and the Resurrection Campaign featured three new missions that would tie Iden Versio’s story into the sequel trilogy and the rise of the First Order. It didn’t do much to fix the issues players had with the base campaign, but Resurrection did give the overall story of the game a fitting conclusion.
Revamped Progression
The next major update came toward the end of March 2018 and focused onrevamping the entire progression systemin order to make the experience fair to players. For those that played at launch, loot boxes and microtransactions dominated the upgrade and progression systems, forcing players to play for dozens of hours or purchase boxes. The revamped progression system removed the option to purchase Crates (loot boxes), made it so that Star Card upgrades could only be unlocked through gameplay and were removed from crates entirely, players could now level up their preferred classes or hero by actually playing the class, and cosmetic items including hero appearances could now be purchased with either in-game credits or as a microtransaction with Crystals.
Ewok Hunt
LikeThe Last Jedicontent, the Night on Endor update in April 2018 added a ton of new themed content including brand new Endor appearances for both Han Solo and Leia Organa. The big draw for this update was alimited-time mode called Ewok Hunt, one that is now a permanent addition due to its popularity. Essentially aStar Warstake on the popular Infection game mode seen in popular multiplayer games likeCall of DutyandHalo, Ewok Hunt pits two Ewoks against a large group of Stormtroopers, and tasks the troopers with surviving for as long as they can, or be turned into a fellow Ewok to join the hunt before extraction arrives.
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Less than six months after the release ofStar Wars: The Last Jedi, it was time for Disney’s second attempt at a spin-off withSolo: A Star Wars Story, a Han Solo origin film. Releasing astwo separate updates in May and Junerespectively, the Han Solo season kicked off with a small update that focused on the original trilogy, adding Jabba’s Palace as a new location, and new appearances including Skiff Guard Lando Calrissian and Boushh Gear Leia Organa. The second update was fare more substantial, featuring newSolo: A Star Wars Storyprequel appearances for Han, Lando, Chewbacca, and the Millenium Falcon, as well as the new Kessel location, and the Extraction game mode.
The Clone Wars
Throughout the end of 2018 and early 2019, DICE released a handful of new updates forStar Wars: Battlefront 2that focused onThe Clone Wars. First off, in October 2018, General Grievous was added as a new playable hero, followed by Obi-Wan Kenobi in November, Count Dooku in January 2019, and Anakin Skywalker in February 2019. While the heroes were the new big thing to be excited about, DICE updated the spawning system to let players spawn in on squad members, added a variety of appearances for Clone Trooper including the 501st Legion and 212th Attack Rebellion, and added Geonosis as a new location in Galactic Assault.
The Clone Wars era also included the release of Capital Supremacy, a now staple game mode inStar Wars: Battlefront 2that has since been renamed to simply, Supremacy. Supremacy is best compared toBattlefield’s Conquest mode; a large scale non-linear multiplayer mode where teams of 20 players (plus an additional 12 AI-combatants) fight over control of five locations around the map. Originally exclusive to the prequel trilogy era, Supremacy was later expanded to include all three Star Wars trilogies.
PvE Coop Missions
By far, one of the most exciting updates to come toStar Wars: Battlefront 2was the Cooperation Update in September 2019. On top of adding Clone Commandos fromStar Wars: Republic Commandoon PS2 and Xbox Original, Felucia as a new location, and Luke Skywalker’s Farmboy appearance, theCooperation Update added two brand new PvE modes. Instant Action made a return from the originalStar Wars: Battlefront2,an offline PvE mode where players can experience large-scale combat against AI. The second mode is called Coop Missions, an online PvE mode where four players can squad up and play through unique experiences from all three Star Wars trilogies for the first time. Like Supremacy, Coop Missions was also originally exclusive to the Clone Wars but was later expanded to all three eras.
The Rise of Skywalker
In December 2019,Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalkerwas released in theatres worldwide, the final film in the sequel trilogy.New content from the filmwas added toStar Wars: Battlefront 2the same month including new appearances for Finn, Rey, Kylo Ren, and Sequel Era Elite Troopers, as well as new sequel trilogy Coop Missions. In the second update, the sequel trilogy was added to Supremacy and the Instant Action offline PvE mode, and most notably, two brand new playable heroes were released, BB-8 and BB-9E. During this time, EA and DICE also releasedStar Wars: Battlefront 2 - The Celebration Edition, a new complete edition of the game that came with every previously released appearance from launch toThe Rise of Skywalker.
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Return to Scarif and Rogue One
In April of this year, DICE releasedthe 25th and final free updateforStar Wars: Battlefront 2, officially bringing support for the game to an end. The Battle on Scarif update returned to the iconic location fromRogue One: A Star Wars Story, adding Scarif as a new location, as well as original trilogy maps to Supremacy and Instant Action, new Scarif and sequel era capital ships, and new Coop Mission locations for Scarif and Crait. Fan-favorite appearances were also added including Darth Maul’s mechanical legs fromStar Wars: The Clone Wars, Rey Skywalker wielding a yellow lightsaber fromThe Rise of Skywalker, Rey and Kylo Ren both with their hoods up, and Emperor Palpatine’s black and red robes, also fromThe Rise of Skywalker.
After almost three years of free updates, EA and DICE arefinished with post-launch content forStar Wars: Battlefront 2and will be moving onto its next project. A smaller team will stay on for general support, however, the hard work is complete and the team is transitioning to a new phase whereStar Wars: Battlefront 2"servers, in-game challenges, recurring events such as Double XP and more, and game support will carry this broad and richStar Warsgaming experience into the future."
Star Wars: Battlefront 2is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
