Lots of good footage out there now with gameplay from the new DLC pack coming for Star Wars Battlefront, which will focus on the cloud city of Bespin.
Okay. I own Star Wars Battlefront on the PS4. I picked it up on sale for $40, back in January (I think). I'll state, up front, that I really hate what EA is doing with the monetization of DLC for this game, but at the same time I really LOVE the attention to detail that is going into the game. The question becomes, "Is it worth the money?" That is really only something the market can decide. If consumers want what EA is doing with this game, then they will buy it. Plain and simple. To put it in perspective, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time retailed for $60 when it launched. Accounting for inflation, that cost in today's terms would be close to $88. Granted, Battlefront is more a "work in progress" than a finished title, and for early adopters the total cost comes over $100 for the complete experience. As of this writing, you can purchase the original game from Amazon for as little as $29, with the Season Pass selling for $50. I don't really know why I'm going into cost breakdowns, but the point is this: EA is building an amazing looking (and feeling) Star Wars experience, and the biggest hurdle they've faced, so far, is the idea that they are cheating people by releasing a "partial" game, and then filling in the gaps with DLC. I get it. What gamers have to decide (or maybe have already decided) is whether the cost is worth the experience. The Bespin DLC will be releasing soon. The Outer Rim is already out, and after playing on it during a recent "free weekend," I'll admit, I'm tempted to get the Season Pass now. Soon, we'll have Death Star DLC, and I think that will be the kicker. When you get the kind of quality that EA is putting out, and imagine taking the seat of an X-Wing on a Death Star battle... Seriously, people spend $150 for Collector's Edition sets that come with cheap plastic gimmicks. In an age where we spend $10 a month on various subscription services, I'll be very interested to see if cost will be a factor when a Death Star trench run is on the line.
Okay. I own Star Wars Battlefront on the PS4. I picked it up on sale for $40, back in January (I think). I'll state, up front, that I really hate what EA is doing with the monetization of DLC for this game, but at the same time I really LOVE the attention to detail that is going into the game. The question becomes, "Is it worth the money?" That is really only something the market can decide. If consumers want what EA is doing with this game, then they will buy it. Plain and simple. To put it in perspective, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time retailed for $60 when it launched. Accounting for inflation, that cost in today's terms would be close to $88. Granted, Battlefront is more a "work in progress" than a finished title, and for early adopters the total cost comes over $100 for the complete experience. As of this writing, you can purchase the original game from Amazon for as little as $29, with the Season Pass selling for $50. I don't really know why I'm going into cost breakdowns, but the point is this: EA is building an amazing looking (and feeling) Star Wars experience, and the biggest hurdle they've faced, so far, is the idea that they are cheating people by releasing a "partial" game, and then filling in the gaps with DLC. I get it. What gamers have to decide (or maybe have already decided) is whether the cost is worth the experience. The Bespin DLC will be releasing soon. The Outer Rim is already out, and after playing on it during a recent "free weekend," I'll admit, I'm tempted to get the Season Pass now. Soon, we'll have Death Star DLC, and I think that will be the kicker. When you get the kind of quality that EA is putting out, and imagine taking the seat of an X-Wing on a Death Star battle... Seriously, people spend $150 for Collector's Edition sets that come with cheap plastic gimmicks. In an age where we spend $10 a month on various subscription services, I'll be very interested to see if cost will be a factor when a Death Star trench run is on the line.
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As soon as there's a single player I'll buy it. Like the previous Battlefront games. Not until then, though. I understand that there wasn't a single player campaign because they ran out of time, so maybe one will show up.
+1 for single player.
Oh wait, I'm seeing this now: http://starwars.ea.com/en_AU/starwars/battlefront/features/single-player
How sizable is this? If it's like an hour of solo gameplay I'm not interested but if it's significant I might be.
I'd still be super bummed if the best stuff was locked behind multiplayer.
The cost is the biggest thing for me as well. More transparency in cases where DLC is a must buy would go a long ways. Luckily I got the game for about 20 bucks. But an extra 50 seems pretty stiff... if only because I know they will do it again next year. And before you know it people have spent 300 bucks on this thing
The single player modes include the training missions (which are fairly short), 8 Battle missions (which are basically kill-confirmed death-match type games, with or without friendly bots), and 6 Survival missions (fighting off waves of enemies). Survival missions definitely take the longest to play through, and aside from the tutorials, actually have semblances of story elements, and take place on the largest maps. Individually, probably as long, or longer than campaign missions in Battlefront 2, but less of them. I guess I don't have as big a problem with it, because I find this Battlefront to be a really fun and immersive Star Wars experience. The original Battlefront games were a similar formula, where the campaign basically mimicked what the multiplayer felt like, but I don't remember them being really all that fun. "Story" was all handled through cinematics, and the AI was horrible. The thing that really made Battlefront great, for me at least, was the giant multiplayer battles (also, landing a ship inside of a Star Destroyer, and then proceeding to battle on foot). I feel like this current version more than delivers on that part of it.
Regarding the DLC, it's certainly not a must buy in the sense that the game is broken without it. It's a huge tease, but it's not necessary. This latest iteration feels like DICE is mapping the Star Wars genome, so to speak. They are putting an extreme amount of effort to nail the details, and honestly the results can be pretty breathtaking at times. $40 (or less) is a better price-point than the $60 it launched at, especially with the missing campaign. It looks like EA Motive is heading the sequel project, so if you really can't get behind what DICE is doing, another take will be available probably late next year, which will unlikely require the current version as a base game.
One of the nice things about games with "long tail DLC" is that you can get in on the action super cheap and the game is supported for a long time. Unless you get a Blizzard game, then it's supported for a long time without DLC. I kind of like that they are continuing on with the base game instead of jumping right into a sequel. One other part that can make this kind of DLC thing nice is if you wait you can get it all for super cheap later. Not sure people will still be playing it, as the magic of these games are in the people playing it, but waiting often nets a good result.
I'm with your scrypt, this DLC isn't needed but it seems so great it's hard to consider a world where you love this game, play it all the time and don't pick this up. NO CLOUD CITY? I don't want to live in that world.
Another thing worth considering is EA has a subscription service that looks pretty good. Currently it doesn't have Star Wars Battlefront but at some point it may.
https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/origin-access
I like this model because if you paid a monthly at some point maybe it could include all this EA DLC content for a sort of premium membership. If you were a big EA fan all your gaming would be taken care of and you would have to think much about it, which could be nice for some.
So far they have a fairly hefty catalog of titles and it's expanding all the time. I wonder what other companies will join here? Well besides Nintendo...
> "Currently it doesn't have Star Wars Battlefront but at some point it may."
Huh. I could have sworn it did at one point. That may have been wishful thinking :D
But yeah I've considered paying for the vault. $5 a month and you can play a lot of great titles, and you get a constant 10% discount as well. So, if you buy a single $60 game and get $6 off, you've paid for a month of it.