Star Wars: Battlefront is on the horizon, and for a lot of gamers it’s every bit as exciting as the upcoming renewal of the Star Wars film series. The game will be released in late November, but thanks to trailers, press releases, and a beta version that’s been going around, we already know a good bit about what to expect. And these are some of the ideas that unfortunately seem to be missing.
Gun & Weapon Variety
The lack of gun variety in the beta was pointed out in a video recap here, and once it’s on your mind it’s kind of annoying to deal with. As the recap put it, precision just isn’t a huge focal point in Battlefront combat, leaving players with a “spray and pray” feeling when engaged in gunfire combat. Of course the guns are accurate with regard to the films, as is most everything in the Battlefront franchise, and that is certainly refreshing. But a little more variety would be nice to see.
The video recap actually makes a suggestion that “laser shotguns” would help to jazz things up a bit, and while that sounds somewhat goofy, it’s not a bad idea. There’s just so much that can be done in a game of this magnitude with so much focus on combat situations. And in the beta, the array of weapons at your disposal shows a little bit of a lack of creativity, or at least a certain stubbornness in being true to the films.
Recreation
This may sound like a strange act, but the fact is Battlefront would probably do well to stray further toward becoming an open world game. As of now, at the end of the day, it’s still mission- and location-based. And one way to infuse a more open world would be to allow for a little bit of character recreation as we see in so many such games. My wish? Populate each planet or major area with a tavern and casino, where you could mingle with aliens, recharge, and perhaps win upgrades.
This site provides a model of how gaming content could even be infused into a casino environment. While it doesn’t specifically have a Star Wars game, it has a number of titles that speak to various popular fictions and films, using popular symbols from those works on slot machine wheels and the like. So just imagine something similar within Battlefront: you walk out of battles and into a tavern, you’re surrounded by that iconic cantina music. You can then play cards with assorted aliens, or spin a slot machine with lightsaber and x-wing icons. A bit cheesy, perhaps, but that may be something this game needs. If nothing else, it would expand the experience.
Space Combat
I’m borrowing this idea from this list of wanted features for the new Battlefront, but really it’s the most popular fan and gamer wish out there. The biggest knock on Battlefront is that it’s limited to ground combat. While it’s definitely thrilling, it just doesn’t capture the entirety of the Star Wars universe.
Space combat would be a little bit of a stretch for the game series given the proven brilliance of its ground-based battles, but the level of detail in Battlefront is so exceptional that it’s hard to doubt that the developers could pull it off. Piloting the Millennium Falcon would naturally be a major draw, but as the piece mentioned, using the spaceships that are about to debut in The Force Awakens would also be a nice touch.
There’s almost no doubt that this is going to be a spectacular game, even without the features and suggestions mentioned here. But if some of these bits were included, they could help take Battlefront to new heights.
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