See my earlier review of “Star Wars Battlefront” here.
The fourth and final downloadable content inspired by “Rogue One” came out this week for the masses (Season Pass holders got it two weeks ago). The Scarif DLC, like the game itself, brings a mixture of fun and frustrating.
The new map is gorgeous. It offers bigger games with Walker Assault and Turning Point. The new game mode, Infiltration, sticks with the three-tiered mode introduced with the Death Star DLC. The developers clearly learned from the previous DLC, making the dogfighting section shorter and adding a sense of desperation to the ground modes. Bumping the players to 16v16 from the Death Star’s 12v12 helps. The new update also added a few game modes to the Death Star level and fixed some bugs.
However, Scarif unleashed new issues or refreshes old ones. The new update locked all DLC for Season Pass holders. No official acknowledgement or fix came. I only found a workaround after digging through Reddit. EA’s “official” response has taken the form of Twitter replies.
The DLC also introduced a comical but ridiculous bug where Lando Calrissian becomes so powerful that he can take down AT-ATs on his own. As with most bugs for this game, the fix will take time.
A shorter-than-usual Walker Assault feels tacked on. The 32-player map only highlights that there hasn’t been a new 20v20 map in nine months. The decision to add more options to the Death Star DLC shows what could and should be done to spice up “Battlefront”: give each map as many game modes as logistically possible.
Those who have seen “Rogue One” should appreciate the recreation of Scarif, especially considering the Scarif DLC team had not seen the movie. But, for a movie that travels to several planets, the DLC (stop me if you’ve heard this before) feels lacking. The decision to push the final DLC release time from “early 2017” to early December likely contributed to this.
Overall, the game now feels “complete,” despite remaining a rushed game and a missed opportunity. At most outlets it’s discounted enough to be a worthwhile, albeit occasionally baffling game for Star Wars fans.
