Star Wars Battlefront 2 is only a few days away from release, but a controversy regarding certain gameplay elements, as well as the company’s response to the criticism of these elements, is actively harming the hype surrounding the game.
Early reviewers concluded that it would take roughly 40 hours of gameplay to unlock certain hero characters within the multiplayer portion of Battlefront 2 without resorting to the alternative of having to pay and get immediate access.
EA’s initial response to the outcry from the fans was less than stellar, with the company stating that they felt players should “feel a sense of pride and accomplishment” for unlocking different heroes after the long 40-hour grind. In fact, the response was so poorly received that it became the most downvoted commented in Reddit history with a current score of -670,000.
Since then, EA has attempted damage control by reducing unlock costs by 75 per cent, from 40,000 points to about 10,000 for Leia, Chewbacca and the Emperor, where characters such as Luke and Vader went from 60,000 credits to 15,000. Finally, the main protagonist of Battlefront 2, Iden Versio, has now also been reduced to 5,000 credits to unlock for use in the multiplayer portion of the title.
“It’s a big change, and it’s one we can make quickly,” the post said. “It will be live today, with an update that is getting loaded into the game.”
Unfortunately, thanks to the efforts of Gameinformer‘s Andrew Reiner it has been confirmed that the Hero costs are not the only thing that has reduced by 75 per cent—the end-game completion for finishing the campaign has also been reduced to 5,000 credits from its prior 20,000 pool.
During my review, finishing the campaign rewarded me with a loot crate containing 20,000 credits. That number is now 5,000 credits.
— Andrew Reiner (@Andrew_Reiner) November 13, 2017
To make matters worse, EA seems to have put a limit on the number of credits players will be able to earn in Arcade mode through the use of a timer akin to ones found in various mobile games.
The worst part of the game is this: You are limited on credits earned in Arcade mode. “More credits available in 14 hours” pic.twitter.com/8NOTvby2hl
— Andrew Reiner (@Andrew_Reiner) November 13, 2017
As of the writing of this post, EA has not commented on the reduction of the end-game credits or the Arcade Mode timer within Battlefront 2.
Liked this article and want to read more like it? Check out Brendan Frye’s interview with EA behind the story of Battlefront 2’s campaign and if you can’t get enough of franchises with the word Star in it, check out Robert B. Mark’s Seven Deadly words of Star Trek Discovery.
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