Like many, I was excited to hear about the classic Star Wars Battlefront Collection being revamped and made ready and accessible for modern gaming consoles and computers. Personally, I logged SO MANY hours on the original Battlefront II on my first-gen Xbox, so the nostalgia came flooding back into my mind pretty quickly. Being that it was a game I loved, having it come back with improved graphics and online multiplayer capabilities seemed like something I would love again and immediately buy.
But I didn’t preorder. I decided to wait. I sat there with it in my cart in the Microsoft store for some time. For whatever reason, I didn’t pull the trigger on the purchase. Of course, knowing what we know now, I’m glad I didn’t.
What went wrong? In short, everything. This is perhaps one of the worst game launches in history. Aspyr, the game developer, did not read the room and plan properly, nor did they inform their buyers of what they were actually getting.
So, let’s discuss each of these issues and why this is a problem for the game, and then we can discuss the bugs. The bugs that have already had to be patched.
On the one hand, it’s reasonable that a game from the Gen 1 era of Xbox would have a bigger storage requirement to bring the game and its graphics up to the modern gaming console requirements. The X/S series of Xbox and the PS5 of PlayStation have much greater capabilities than their Gen 1 predecessors.
But no one was prepared for the size jump that the games clocked in at when they came out. Originally combined, they are in the 7GB range for total hard drive requirements. Now, they are at over 70GB for both games and the preorder DLC.
Based on the reviews in the Microsoft store, this caught quite a few buyers off guard and forced them to remove content from their consoles to download their new purchase in order to play.
On the other hand, it would have been good for Aspyr to inform the buyers a little more clearly of the updated size requirements for the games for download. To be fair, some of this is on the buyers for not looking and knowing what they were buying. With that being said, a heads-up could have been nice.
Here’s where Aspyr is fully to blame. With the excitement that fans had with the return of these games and the reasonable buy-in price, there should have been some level of recognition from the developer regarding what would be required for dedicated server space on these games. What’s Aspyr’s response to the internet buzz about the return of these extremely popular games?
In the words of Monty Python, Holy Grail, “Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”
Three servers. Three. That’s it. That’s all. And the result of that?
Long lines of people couldn’t access the game they bought and downloaded because the servers were overloaded. Again, reading the angry reviews on the Microsoft Store makes it clear that this was a problem platform-wide. Instead of hours of play in the game, there were long lines of waiting and anger.
Once players got into the game, the apparently lucky and chosen few were greeted by bugs galore.
In total transparency and full honesty, Aspyr has already attempted to fix the issue of how buggy the game was launched for the players who could get into one of the three available servers. That hotfix patch is out and usable for all players now.
But if you go to Reddit or any social media page where this game is being talked about, you will find three issues are discussed. 1) the size of the game, 2) the lack of dedicated servers, and 3) all the damn bugs.
Now, I’m no game programmer or developer, but it seems to me that if a game has this many reported issues/bugs in the software, someone or a group of people skipped a step. Some critical testing was missed, or the data from the testing was overlooked.
This isn’t the only game that Aspyr has ever made. They aren’t rookies. They have released several other games that are nowhere near the issues that we are seeing on this unless you count the issues surrounding Knights of the Old Republic 2 and the DLCs that never materialized from Aspyr.
Aspyr is aware of the issues and appears to be taking ownership of them, as seen in this Twitter / X post – https://twitter.com/AspyrMedia/status/1768421309199900899
And the player’s reactions to that post show that there is still much work to be done to fix what many players call a cash grab from fans. Players are still reporting missing cutscenes, sound issues, locked controls when flying, lag issues from the servers, and other issues as well. How Aspyr chooses to continue to address these issues will help decide whether or not you should consider buying the game. Right now, I will hold off from buying the collection and just continue playing the originals until these issues are resolved. Sure, it’s only $30 to $40 USD for the games, but who wants to spend $40 USD on something you know is currently broken?
Any excitement that surrounded the initial announcement of the games released has been dashed and replaced with disappointment, bitterness, and anger from buyers. Aspyr is quickly losing the ground they should have gained by releasing such a popular title combo as Battlefront I & II.
But … it’s not too late. Aspyr CAN fix this if they choose to do so. Doing so would help take the bad taste out of their mouth and make people less hesitant to buy from them in the future. Gamers have long memories and short pocketbooks for bad developers who are seemingly only interested in the money, not the quality of the release.
Fixing the game will help fix their reputation, which is taking a MAJOR hit right now in gaming circles.
If you want to talk more about this topic or other nerdy pop culture things, you need to join our Inner Circle! It’s the best and easiest way to talk nerdy with all the other writers and me. We have a seat saved on the couch just for you!
