The games with the biggest budgets and highest levels of anticipation always come towards the end of the year, in the lead-up to the holidays, and in 2017 Star Wars Battlefront II was one of the most expensive and the most hyped. Unfortunately, it is also the most guilty of a new trend seen in almost all this season's games: ham-fisted gambling mechanics that prioritise the potential for ongoing income over a satisfying in-game experience.

It's a shame because there's something special and good here. Everything great about the previous game is improved, with fans of the films sure to be awed by the sheer level of detail on show. Every level, including the Naboo palace and Kamino clone factory from the prequels, or Maz Kanata's bar from Episode VII, is immaculately recreated. All the droids, weapons and vehicles look and sound just like they should, and just running around in this world is a lot of fun.

The high quality of the game can't make up for the predatory gambling system that gates content.

The game also adds in the one obvious thing missing from 2015's Battlefront, namely a single-player campaign. It's more trite in its presentation of good and evil than the promotional material would have you think, leans too heavily on established film characters and is literally unfinished (it won't get its final chapters until after Episode VIII hits cinemas), but it's totally fine if you want to come to grips with the game's systems before you go online.

It all looks fantastic, and as a straightforward spectacle it's very successful, particularly when it comes to space battles. The bones of a good story are certainly here, centred around an Imperial soldier displaced when the Rebels take down the Death Star, but the imposition of random film characters and a procession of uninteresting objectives makes it clear that narrative wasn't a huge priority.