Star Wars: Battlefront II – the Dark Side is strong with this game

It still isn’t out yet, but the controversy of Battlefront II’s loot boxes and progression system has led to online protests and death threats.

£70 for a video game is madness and put me off buying a PS5 - Reader’s Feature

It looks like Star Wars: Battlefront II is going to suffer a rocky launch this week, not because of technical problems, but because of a fan revolt against its use of loot boxes.

It has already broken records though, with an official EA comment on Reddit becoming the most downvoted post in the site’s history (our thanks to reader Dardar1989 and others for pointing it out).

The thread is titled ‘Seriously? I paid $80 to have Vader locked?’ and revolves around the revelation that it takes 40 hours of play in order to unlock a new hero character.




The calculations were made in a separate Reddit thread (there’s even a spreadsheet), and are based on the changes made to the game following the recent beta.

Update: It’s since transpired that at a review event, which we did not attend, the cost of a hero was lowered from 60,000 credits (as used in the calculations above) to just 10,000. It seems 60,000 will be the cost in the final game, but we’ll wait and see for sure as the week goes on. It is of course possible for EA to change the amount at any time.

138,000 people don’t want to spend 40 hours unlocking Darth Vader

Until that beta the full extent of loot boxes’ importance to the game were not obvious, when it became clear that all player progression is based around them – whether bought with in-game currency or real money.

‘The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes’, reads EA’s comment.

‘As for cost, we selected initial values based upon data from the open beta and other adjustments made to milestone rewards before launch. Among other things, we’re looking at average per-player credit earn rates on a daily bases, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding and of course attainable via gameplay.’

That all seems fairly reasonable in itself, but the anger is clearly a more general dislike of the game’s approach rather than the post itself.

Although things weren’t helped when EA community manager Mat Everett made, and quickly deleted, a Twitter comment about ‘armchair developers’.

And just to ensure the usual Internet circus is in full effect, he of course was immediately issued a series of death threats by irate fans.

The real question here though is whether fans’ anger is actually going to result in them not buying the game or its microtransactions. History suggests that despite all the sound and fury they probably will anyway.

Star Wars: Battlefront II is due to be released this Friday, November 17, on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

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