Star Wars Battlefront debuted in 2015, giving players multiple opportunities to team up with friends on fields of battle like Hoth and Tatooine. Unfortunately, once players had grown tired of fighting on Hoth, they were left with little else to enjoy, While expansions added new maps, the game remained a multiplayer title with comparatively subpar mechanics.
This backstory brings us to Star Wars Battlefront II. Three studios collaborated on it in order to hammer out the flaws of its forebear. Players can enjoy more characters, environments, a greatly-improved load-out system and a litany of other improvements over the previous iteration. Despite these improvements, it is important to remember Star Wars was built on narrative-Battlefront II offers players a single-player campaign to satisfy that itch.
The single-player campaign focuses on the Imperial perspective; Iden Versio is the captain of Inferno squad, one of the Empire’s special forces and forced to cope with the events following “Return of the Jedi.” Furthermore, this story is canon with the overarching universe, complete with a prequel novel.
After a respectable amount of playtime, the campaign is every bit as satisfying as single-players could hope for. The story itself is nearly perfect, possibly only marred by the looming shadow of nostalgia. Where the multiplayer theater is loaded with options and modifications, the campaign is (mostly) focused on Versio’s story.
The single-player campaign is broken up into 13 chapters, beginning right before Jedi’s climax. Versio must destroy evidence that the Rebels could use to prepare for the attack on the forest moon of Endor only to later see the Death Star brought to ruin in the sky. She is then contacted by her father, an Admiral within the Empire, to execute the Emperor’s “Operation: Cinder.”
Filled with new purpose, Versio must head to Vardos, her homeworld; kill Rebels, manage intelligence and pilot her TIE Fighter against X-wings and cruisers. As Versio continues to follow her orders, she finds herself questioning the mission when the results seem so contrary to the ideals she followed the Empire to achieve. Unfortunately, not all of the campaign focuses on Versio; some chapters jump into the perspectives of other characters and planets; while this gives EA DICE opportunities to show off its work on other set pieces, it also has players controlling characters like Luke, Han and Leia. While the non-Versio chapters are incredibly fun to play, they detract from her story.
