It’s safe to say EA is the most despised major publisher in gaming today. From rampant DLC, a Steam clone that fails to remotely connect players or deliver the same library of games, and an insistence on paying more money for increasingly dwindling content, they’ve dug themselves a great hole in the hearts of gamers over the last decade that seems to deepen with each passing year. The notion that they are the sole proprietors of Star Wars in the format of video games caused a million voices to cry out in terror. And yet, I believe that those voices will be silenced, not by any planet-ravaging superlaser, but by the signs presented by none other than the company’s first non-Bioware foray, Star Wars Battlefront.

I’ll preface this opinion only by admitting that I was not thrilled with EA’s work in the Star Wars universe before this release. I find Star Wars: The Old Republic to be a hackneyed World of Warcraft clone with a prequel-inspired world and character design, a story lacking nuance and craft, and a setup so rote that it nearly lampoons the entire formula most stories in a galaxy far, far away cling to. I was just as disappointed in the decision as most gamers and Star Wars fans.

Until I played the beta.

Let’s make one thing clear: like most DICE betas, Battlefront’s ranged from playable and fun to a complete trainwreck of bugs and glitches and balance issues. But within the muttered curses towards the Cycler Rifle and the inevitably horrific K/D ratio, I was completely enthralled. For the first time in nearly a decade a game had captured the look, the feel, the magic of every inch of the Star Wars universe. The blasters each possessed a sound and weight that fit their looks, the locales (small in number though they are) lived and breathed with the same energy and beauty as they did in the frames of the original films. I spent the first hours of my games just wandering the landscapes of Sullust and Hoth, drinking in the sight of every turret and hallway and starship rendered so perfectly they might as well have been real. It got so much right.

Inevitably, I have to address the relation of this reboot to its predecessors. The fact of the matter is that the new Battlefront ditches the mechanics of the other games in the series. Vehicles are no longer real objects on the map to be taken but icons to be sprinted into and unable to be stolen by the opposition, as are heroes and a variety of powerups or secondary items. Classes are abolished in favor of character customization, first introduced in the PSP iterations. Space battles are replaced with the new ground-based Fighter Squadron. The classic control-point mode is rebranded Supremacy and sidelined in favor of Walker Assault, where Rebel troops must survive and prepare for key windows of attack against an AT-AT. The game is more of a game than a realistic battlefield scenario. And yet, once again, I consider this a positive.

Star Wars Battlefront, quite simply, gives every player a chance to do whatever they’d like. One can rush down a volcanic hillside dodging laserfire and blasting opponents with their favorite blaster, exploding or sniping or trapping enemy soldiers as they see fit. A quick dash into an icon, and suddenly they’re in the air strafing about as a TIE Fighter or shooting first as Han Solo. Death is just as rapid as the respawn counter, and there is rarely, if ever, a dull moment spent slogging across a map. You aren’t bound by classes or vehicle locations. The maps, as small in number as they are (Seven for Walker Assault, assuming you own no DLC) are as fun to battle over as they are to look at. And that’s not even counting the sheer number of gameplay modes offered.

Do its elders still have advantages over it? Certainly. 40 player maximum matches can be underwhelming at times. A lack of player cohesion and communication can make one feel isolated, though I can’t say that’s not an issue I have with many a shooter. The sense of realism and immersion is broken by the use of holographic powerups dotting the map. The lack of a single-player mode besides training and skirmishes is somewhat disappointing. But for all the fun had in years gone by, the newer, more casual setup combined with brilliant visual and audio design creates a more thematic and ultimately more fulfilling game.

There have been plenty of other complaints: lack of prequel content (Ewww), balancing issues, DICE’s inevitable technical difficulties. These, to me, seem so minor or nonexistent that they fail to even dent the reason I really enjoy the game. Though it’s perhaps a bad cliché to praise visuals in video games, the truth is that, for the first time, EA has shown that Star Wars can be rendered in near-perfect photorealism. I can feel like I’m on the dunes of Jakku, stumbling between starfighter wrecks while stormtroopers erupt in flames around me. I can run in vain from the towering AT-ATs assaulting Echo Base, able to hear with perfect clarity the laserfire that will cut me down a half-second later, a Wilhelm scream yelping in its wake. The gameplay isn’t stellar, and that’s a fair critique, but, as a Star Wars fan, the fact that this game so completely, flawlessly rendered the world is an achievement that prevents its failings from dethroning it as a triumph for DICE, and for the love and care and respect they showed the property I love.

As DLC packs roll out, I find myself looking at this game and the future of Star Wars with eager anticipation. The newly-released Death Star maps and modes are a blast to play, featuring the space battles we all have craved since the game’s release, implemented with more energy and excitement that even those of the much-lauded Battlefront II. More free content is being released with the paid, somewhat leveling the playing field. And as the tease of new single-player adventures grow ever closer, I find myself eager to see what EA will make of their chance to bring that galaxy far, far away back to gaming.