Francis ParcoToday marks 20 years since LucasArts and the now-defunct Pandemic Studios released the classic Star Wars Battlefront 2 (12 years before Dice and Electronic Arts would release their modern lootbox edition reboot). Ask many longtime Star Wars fans who grew up with titles like this from the mid-2000s and you’re more than likely to find many fans who remember this game very fondly. With this special anniversary, let’s look back at a time when the Battlefront franchise as a whole once dominated the gaming world…
Movie Tie-In And Sequel To A Star Wars Classic
The classic Battlefront 2 was released in 2005, the same year as the movie that concluded the Star Wars prequels – Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, which released earlier in the year on May 19. Battlefront 2 was released for PS2, original Xbox, PC, and PSP. In fact, Battlefront 2 was among the movie’s tie-in games, alongside the first ever Lego Star Wars game, a bit of Republic Commando, and the movie’s very own video game adaption of the same name.
Naturally, this game was furthermore, a sequel to the title that jumpstarted this franchise the year before. Both games can be considered as somewhat Battlefield with a Star Wars coat of paint. For the time, both Battlefront titles boasted large maps with large-scale PvP or PvE battles. And these battles were waged on a number of planets from the Original and Prequel trilogies. Tatooine, the Death Star, Coruscant, Endor, Mustafar, Utapau, you name it. While Team Death Match is the standard game mode of 16v16 battles (which can be edited to have hundreds more reinforcements on both teams) that involves winning by either eliminating all enemy reinforcements or capturing all command posts, fans have multiple options for other game modes. Such game modes like Capture The Flag (CTF), Hunt, and the franchise staple Heroes vs Villains, as well as space battles liven up the experience.
Certain planets would have space maps that take place over the planet, pitting the factions to win the matches through multiple options: ship-on-ship dogfighting, destroying the frigates and other warship installations, and even flying into the enemy hangers to destroy from within. Overall, players would be hard pressed to look for any shortage of fun to have playing this game. And if the standard offline singe-player or splitscreen gameplay isn’t enough, there’s always online multiplayer (which I personally missed out on for my time on PS2) as well as a story campaign that starts from the Battle of Geonosis from Episode 2 all the way to the Battle of Hoth from Empire Strikes Back. Again, the game offers a variety of game modes to keep any gaming session going for hours on end. I haven’t even mentioned another staple of the game: Galactic Conquest, which is almost like a board game in terms of players building fleets after conquering planets one at a time, unlocking character classes and bonuses until the entire galaxy is liberated or conquered (depending on the chosen era and faction).
Improvements Over The Original
When it comes down to the things Battlefront 2 improved upon, there’s too many to choose from. However, here are some of the biggest improvements the sequel boasted:
Mentioning Heroes vs Villains earlier, the Battlefront 1 had one hero depending on the map and era, but they were not playable at all. They were also invincible as well, with only certain maps where you can find creative ways to blast the heroes off from platforms or run them over with speeders. For Battlefront 2, Heroes are playable on most maps… but you’ll need to unlock them by eliminating more enemies first. Plus, the heroes slowly lose health over time, especially the more hits they take. So when playing as heroes, keep on taking down enemies to extend your health for as long as possible. But this problem is nonexistent in the Heroes vs Villains mode, which is only available on the Mos Eisley map on Tatooine, where major Jedi, Sith, Rebellion, and Bounty Hunter characters can directly battle with each other.
Space Battles were a huge introduction, which I’ve already covered above in greater detail. There were no space battles in the first Battlefront game, and instead had certain maps like Bespin Platforms were players had the option to fly in the skies above and also shoot down the starfighters by using turrets.
The campaign was yet another big improvement, since the predecessor’s story basically had standard gameplay with a basic premise to each battle. You could easily come up with your own scenario and play the standard instant action mode instead. But with Battlefront 2, an actual in-depth story was present, which showcased Temuera Morrison as an unseen Clone Trooper narrator, recalling numerous battles from the Clone War into the reign of the Galactic Empire. These stories had actual unique objectives not seen in the standard game, such as Stormtroopers vs Phase 1 Clone Troopers on Kamino.
A Glowing Legacy
Nostalgia for Battlefront 2 and its predecessor is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, Battlefront 2‘s PC port had one major option that the console and PSP ports could never officially have — mods. This is good for if you still end up finding the standard version of Battlefront 2 growing stale over time. The modding scene for Battlefront 2 is still alive and well to this day, adding characters, maps, and game modes that the title never had before… even content from Star Wars eras in the years since 2005. In fact, one major mod that’s been in the works for years has been the Battlefront 3 Legacy Mod. It aims to recreate the gameplay and art style of the cancelled sequel to Battlefront 2 (which we’ll get into in just a moment) including the infamous ground-to-space gameplay. Of course, there’s way more mods to Battlefront 2 than the Battlefront 3 Legacy Mod, and I encourage you to explore countless mod showcases on YouTube.
Speaking of Battlefront 3, it’s still an illusive sequel to this day, which is a weakness/downside of Battlefront 2‘s nostalgia. Battlefront 2 and its predecessor or so beloved that it seems like there could never be a proper follow up to continue their legacy. Back around 2008/2009, Battlefront 3 had the Star Wars gaming scene buzzing, especially with its ambitious ground-to-space combat where players can transition between both locations instead of having separate ground and space battles. There have been conflicting reports on why Battlefront 3 was cancelled, ranging from the developers Free Radical Design having technical troubles/missed deadlines to the game allegedly almost complete but with glitches and bugs keeping the game from seeing the light of day.
However, not all was lost from the elusive Battlefront 3, as features including the ground-to-space combat was recycled for the PSP exclusive Battlefront game Renegade Squadron. Plus, during Holiday 2024 an earlier build of the Nintendo Wii port of the cancelled Star Wars Battlefront 3 has been leaked online (via Insider Gaming), which gives Star Wars fans a playable glimpse into the Battlefront sequel that could have been.
Additionally, while the original GameSpy multiplayer servers for the classic Battlefront games were shut down in 2014, online multiplayer has been restored for the Steam ports of the games in the following years (via Reddit). Despite the game being very much old and outdated in today’s gaming standards, the classics just can’t seem to ever truly die out.
Tainted By Modern Gaming?
The darker side of nostalgia continues, though by no fault of Battlefront 2‘s own. It was a decade after the second game (almost a decade ago now) that EA attempted to recapture the spirit of the classic Battlefront games. The first EA Battlefront reboot released in November 2015, and despite boasting impressive graphics and immersive sound design, it failed to live up to the classics, due to a lack of content such as a single player story, and only being limited to the Original Trilogy. Then there’s the second attempt in 2017, which aimed to finally bring the franchise to modern gaming, in part, with a proper story campaign and with characters/locations from all three eras of Star Wars… only for the Battlefront 2 reboot to be further tainted by lootboxes and other pay-to-win schemes… all for bringing “a sense of pride and accomplishment” (as reported by Inc.com).
Yes, the EA Battlefront 2 reboot would gradually make a complete 180 by removing the lootboxes and pay-to-win features, as well as adding more and more characters, maps, and game modes over the next two to three years. But all of that was concluded during Spring 2020 when EA announced the end of content support (via IGN). Just when the Battlefront 2 reboot was finally turning things around for the better…
Fast forward to early last year, and a major event in the franchise’s history was dropped: the classic Battlefront games were being remastered. Enter… the Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection. Perhaps if EA couldn’t do the franchise correctly in the modern gaming era, the next best thing would be to bring the classics to modern consoles. A slew of new features were announced, from improved visuals to larger battles and Heroes vs Villains no longer limited to just one map. This should have been a slam dunk for the franchise… except it crashed and burned on Pie Day.
Already on release, the Battlefront Classic Collection was dead on arrival, which I covered in greater detail. The game was an entire glitchfest in both offline and especially online multiplayer. Missing content didn’t help matters either. While Aspyr Media and Embracer Group gradually released a few patches that fixed some major technical issues, the last patch was released a few months later and no further updates followed. Despite all the fixes that were brought to the game, it’s still not in a polished enough state. It’s been well over a year since the last patch, and its a shame that the game will remain a wasted… no, botched, opportunity. Shame, since I really wanted to buy this collection in order to play the classic Battlefront games on my PS5, but that possibility may never be fulfilled, since I was waiting for the title to be fully patched up before dropping my hard earned credits.
Going back to Battlefront 3 one more time, it was not the only time that another game in the series was cancelled. The devs over at Dice once pitched a new Battlefront 3 to EA, only for the publishing giant to reject, citing concerns over licensing costs (via GameSpot).
Since then, there has been nothing new for the Battlefront franchise… other than the 2017 reboot making waves over the Spring/Summer with record-breaking surge of new/returning players to the EA reboot (particularly on Steam), introducing new fuel for a push to make a Battlefront 3.
With the resurgence seemingly died off in the months since, the future of the Battlefront franchise remains uncertain. Will a Battlefront 3 ever be made? If so, who would take up the burden in place of EA? Until these questions can be answered, players can still flock to both the classics and reboots for now. For the classic Battlefront 2 in particular, there’s plenty of time to revisit this game and look back at its legacy as the next 18 months go by for the coming of the eventual Star Wars 50th Anniversary in May 2027. Hopefully something positive and related to the franchise will pop up by then.