Star Wars: Battlefront Rogue One - 10 Ways To Nail The Scarif DLC
It takes more than just a sprinkling of nostalgia to make a season pass worthwhile.
Star Wars: Battlefront's very first anniversary is almost near, and DICE seem to have found a fairly apt way of celebrating. How? By releasing a Rogue One-themed piece of DLC, of course.
Battlefront's post-release content strategy managed to offend pretty much everyone, their aunt and uncle when it was first unveiled last year, and while the packs released thus far have yet to alleviate the criticisms levelled at DICE's first foray into the Star Wars mythos (sparsity of content still abounds regularly), they're a far cry away from the disaster fans thought they would be.
A year on from its release, Battlefront remains a rich and vibrant FPS that still manages to entertain on a very basic level. It's starfighters and lightsabers, what more could you want?
There's every chance that Battlefront's final batch of content could fully realise its promise of a truly immersive and riveting Star Wars experience. Irrespective of your view on season passes, DLC, and all that other malarkey, you have to admit you're just a teeny bit excited to see how Battlefront bows out, right?
Will it be with a Death Star-esque bang? Or will this last salvo deflect off the surface in true anticlimactic fashion?
Either way, this last batch of content simply can't fail to impress... provided it's done right.
10. Integrate Air And Ground Combat Seemlessly
My biggest personal issue with Battlefront is that flying just doesn't feel all that great. The slower and more cumbersome X-Wings and TIE-Fighters are completely outmatched by their nimbler A-Wing and TIE-Interceptor cousins, and the lottery of finding hero power-ups just isn't a fair system at all. Considering starfighters are one of the franchise's biggest draws, you have to admit, this is a c*ck up that would take a lot to redeem.
Walker Assault fairs a little better in this respect, as it takes a little more skill to retain mastery of the skies, but the experience still feels disjointed in that air combat and ground combat are wholly disconnected. Sure, the player is completely disposed to mount the odd strafing run now and then, or, if they're really lucky, to lasso an AT-AT right as it's ready to cross the final hurdle, but often it can feel totally superfluous and even insignificant next to the intense firefights that are occurring on the surface.
The power-up system is largely to blame for this, but it's not something that's completely unfixable. On the contrary, Scarif presents a prime opportunity for DICE to make air combat feel all the more organic.
If they mixed the flowing narrative of Battle Station, for instance, with the sprawling gameplay of Rush, you'd have a map that felt ten times as expansive and 'lived in' than any of the others. Break the pace less, give players a narrative reason to fight, and everything else will fall into place.