Review

5 Mar

It seems that everywhere you look there is a Star Wars game being made. Even before the initial game license acquisition by EA there were many different Star Wars games being made focusing on different aspects and characters of the series. While there are many games that have been released recently and are still in development, there aren’t many that have been able to take great strides in storytelling and bring exciting layers to the Star Wars universe. While there are games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order that make exciting and interesting developments for the story, others like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2017) don’t take full advantage of the story and characters laid before them.

Looking back at some classic Star Wars games we can see that the stories told in these games are more intriguing and exciting mixed with the exciting gameplay that Battlefront II offered at the time. The story mode for Battlefront II put players in the shoes of the 501st clone legion. Arguably the greatest soldiers in The Grand Army of the Republic, the 501st would travel across all across the galaxy as they fought in The Clone Wars and eventually the Rise of the Empire. The exciting backdrop of The Clone Wars and the Imperial Rising was a long awaited story as information about their rising and operations were mostly obscure thanks to the fast paced storytelling of Star Wars Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith.

Telling the story of The Clone Wars and The Rising of the Empire was no easy task as Pandemic Studios had to make sure that no mission would be filler. Returning as the Clones, Temuera Morrison’s tentative and brilliantly written narration helps to aid incredible weight of the missions and also helps us to form a better opinion of the Clones and their missions across the galaxy and just how much planning and chance actually went into Palpatine’s deep plan.

The Verdict

Star Wars: Battlefront II offers an interesting and compelling narrative with brilliantly designed and fun campaign missions that show the strength of the 501st legion. Gleaming a glimpse into some of the harsher sides of the Clone Wars and the Rise of the Empire was also a fun treat filled with a fair few surprises that help keep the missions fresh. Even if the campaign itself is no longer canon, it was still fun to learn much about the deeper workings of Palpatine’s plans.

Main Story - While Battlefront II’s story may not be ambitious, it does a great job at holding the player’s interest through it’s exciting campaign missions that are documented so well through the 501st’s narration and inner thoughts, while bringing new light to the Imperial Rising - 8/10
Characters - Bringing many heroes and villains along on it’s engaging campaign we get to learn a little bit about these characters and their motivations, although told only through the lens of the narrating 501st clone trooper and could have been greatly improved by adding better lines of dialogue through the gameplay - 6/10