Star Wars Battlefront 2 BETA Impressions!

Star Wars Battlefront 2 so far has delivered on its promise to completely improve upon the first reboot installment from back in 2015 from what we've seen in this Beta and from content we have seen in trailers. To give some clarity and context, Star Wars Battlefront 2015 was pretty dissappointing. The entire game felt so rushed to be ready in time to capitalize on the inevitable popularity and hype from Star Wars The Force Awakens. While the game visually looked amazing, it was bare bones in every other regard. The game launched with a tiny 4 map roster. The game focused on solely on the era of the Original trilogy. It was insanely light on game modes and lacked any campaign mode. What made this barebones game even more embarrassingly obvious that it was rushed, was the fact that we have already had two battlefront games made originally by LucasArts. These older PS2 era games had more modes, maps, and heroes than a modern 2015 game. This was the first Star Wars game we had gotten in a while since the revival of starters post Disneys acquisition so it could be forgivable just from nostalgia and short development time if the gameplay was any good. Unfortunately, the few maps there were large open spaces with poor cover. Absent a good roll/dodge system and almost every gun felt like an automatic sniper rifle. The amount of times you would instantly die from someone incredibly far away who you couldn't see was very aggravating. Also, the use of a season pass system eventually divided the player base immensely. Fast forward to 2017 and Star Wars Battle Front 2 is fast approaching, The beta has shown us a small section of the game and what we see so far has got to be one of the best examples of improvement between sequels since Assassin's Creed II. Almost all of the feedback from the first game has been addressed and fixed. Just to list some of the largest improvements: -A Single Player Campaign will be available at a launch. -SW Battlefront II nearly triples the number of Heroes, Maps, and Vehicles, from the first game. -Space Battles have been added at launch -The Season Pass is no more which will bring a more united user bases, making maps that are added later accessible to everyone. -All three Eras of Starwars - Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War, and Force Awakens Era are all present. The oddest thing from the beta so far was how the different Era's are being handled. We see things like Darth Maul's fighter helping the Empire, or Rey helping Clones in the Battle of Naboo... Rey was appearing on the same map as Darth Maul. This was happening in actual matches not like "heroes vs villains" type events. Hopefully we will see a more realistic depiction of the eras in the actual game as we only got the smallest portion of the game in the beta. This could have been explained by them being the only heroes who were ready for the beta. Time will tell in November. The only remaining biggest flaw with the 2015 Battlefront is now confirmed fixed, evident by the beta. There are actual differences between different troopers with class based squads, troops that are armed with different, balanced, weapons that work differently. They don't all feel the same, and allow for more balanced range. Sniping is actually difficult like it should be. Cover and a dodge/roll system allow for the better ability to survive distant weapons fire. Tactics have been returned to the warfare in the game. You are rewarded for staying close to your squad members. You are rewarded with success when you use the classes the way they are meant too. Everything just screams evolution and progress. It still isn't perfect. The crouch and roll mechanic feels a little sluggish so far and First Person perspective feels a little heavy. These could be fixed by release. Inclusion of a Red highlight for enemies could make it easier to see enemies in game. Spotting beige battle droids on Naboo is a nightmare. So far the largest negative I can offer from the beta so far has been the experience in Space. The First thing I recommend doing is going into options and disabling the ability to control roll. I don't claim to be an expert when it comes to flying simulators, but I do play a lot of video games and controlling the fighters was immensely difficult. Just piloting the ships is very hard to do. The only space map in the beta included some very narrow passage ways in a Imperial ship yard. The worst experience about space battles is there is zero margin for error. Just the slightest tap of anything vaporizes your ship. You feel like you are flying an overinflated balloon that will pop at the slightest provocation. I remember yelling at my display because the farthest edge of my fighter barely grazed the outermost edge of an antenna and my ship popped in a ridiculous looking explosion rather than a realistic drain to health. I really hope Dice fixes this for launch, adding a more realistic visual explosion and drain to health relative to damage. This is especially important because of how difficult it is to actually shoot/dodge fire. In the first game it was actually easier to lock on to and fire primary weapons on enemy fighters. Now, it is so much harder that players are forced to rely on slow cool down homing missiles. Because the star fighters lack any form a "evasive maneuvers" once you are locked on and shot at, you feel pretty powerless. In open space, you feel like sitting ducks. Especially since space battles are now objective based with the need to fly and destroy objectives, many adjustments to controls and weapons are a must fix. Lock on missiles are way to strong, and primary fire is far too weak. Matched with flying glorified space balloons, I recommend sticking with boots on the ground for now. In Summary, with the exception of many improvements needed to space battles, the vast improvements to ground gameplay, and the many modes, maps, and characters gives Star Wars Battlefront 2 an early level of excitement and hype. We are so stoked to play the game in November! Make sure to preorder to get the game early, as well as reward the developers for listening to all our feedback!