EA Star Wars games have been around for a while, but I don’t think they’ve found their groove yet. Star Wars is one of those universes that, in my mind, is hard to screw up. If you treat the universe with respect, then fans will most likely love what you create. But when it comes to Rian Johnson and EA, it seems like it’s impossible to get it right.
It’s worth noting that when Battlefront 2 came out, a lot of people loved it. Polygon called it a “beautifully rendered” Star Wars game that “hit all of the right notes in the heat of a pitched firefight” needless to say, they liked it. The game has an 8.8/10 rating on IGN and a 89% rating on Google. So I am not claiming to speak for everyone with this article. I realize that many people really liked this game.
In this article, I’m specifically talking about Battlefront 2 from EA. I played an entire campaign as a character that no one cares about. Sure, there was one level where you got to play as Luke, Leia, and Lando, but that didn’t make up for it. Why can’t we play actual interesting campaigns as major characters?
The entire campaign I kept thinking, “when is this going to get good?” and it never did. I thought eventually you’d switch from following this boring storyline to a more interesting one, but that never actually happened. You got to kill bugs while playing as Luke Skywalker. So cool *eye roll*. EA has chosen to not care about what fans want. They just want to make a quick buck, and develop their games with as little care as possible. Actually taking the time to think about what would make a good game is too much for them.
MAKE A GAME WITH A GOOD STORY, ONE THAT HAS JEDI OR SITH AS THE CHARACTER.
Let’s face it. Star Wars owes quite a bit of its intrigue to lightsabers. So whenever a game or movie is light on lightsabers, it’s just lame. Sure, Rogue One was a nice story-telling movie, it wasn’t as cool as the real, earlier Star Wars films. So maybe just stop forgetting about lightsabers.
Having one level where you’re a Jedi is an outrage. I didn’t buy a game just so I could be a glorified stormtrooper running around with my blaster the entire time.
There’s plenty of material EA could work with. The Old Republic stories are one that has the potential to make a lot of fans happy. So why don’t they do something like that? I think it comes down to being 1. lazy and 2. scared. They’re scared to do something different and they don’t want to put in the time and money.
In my opinion, the way Star Wars is being treated these days is frankly sad.
[Featured image via EA.com]