Spoiler warning and editor’s note: This preview contains plot details for the first three missions of Star Wars: see deal Star Wars Battlefront II [Online Game Code] $59.99on Gamestop

There’s an old Star Wars joke (best known from Kevin Smith’s Clerks) about all the janitors and construction workers who were innocently working on the second Death Star when it blew up. Sure, the Emperor was finally defeated, but what about the little people? Was working a day job for the Empire really deserving of such a grisly fate?

While Star Wars: Battlefront 2’s single-player story didn’t put me in control of anyone nearly as hapless as a space janitor, it does present a similar question. It pushed me to consider the Force-less faces on the other side, the people who were born and raised knowing nothing but the Empire, and the people left behind after the Galactic Civil War was “won” in Return of the Jedi.

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I got to play the first three missions of Battlefront 2’s campaign over the course of about two hours, and really enjoyed what I saw. EA has referred to the single-player mode as a “tour” of what the multiplayer modes have to offer, and while the core of those multiplayer influences can still be seen throughout the campaign, I was glad to discover it also felt like a substantial and fleshed out experience of its own. It looks, sounds, and feels like a Star Wars movie, but from a unique perspective we haven’t seen much of since the likes of 1994’s Star Wars: TIE Fighter.

A Parsec in Imperial Shoes

You play as Iden Versio, an Imperial Special Forces trooper who was standing on the moon of Endor looking up as the second Death Star exploded above her unit, Inferno Squad. And that’s not just backstory: it’s literally the second mission of the campaign. I was clearing out straggling Rebel forces amid the wreckage of the shield generator Han and Leia had just destroyed when, all of a sudden, the Empire’s second attempt at a spherical space station went boom.

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It’s a strange, emotional moment for a Star Wars fan - one that was previously nothing but a climactic success. But I wasn’t watching a montage of fireworks and digitally touched-up celebrations across the galaxy after the explosion, I was looking at Iden Versio coming to terms with the loss of her Empire’s greatest symbol of dominance over the galaxy. It’s a complex and horrible thing. I don’t want to sympathize with her, but I do. That sympathy doesn’t come lightly, but it’s a testament to the sincerity of the story being told that I could already start to care about a diehard Imperial soldier this early in the campaign.

“ The discomfort of playing as an Imperial is part of the point.

Still, it’s an adjustment that didn’t quite settle into place in my time with Battlefront 2, and I think that discomfort is part of the point. As I ran through the forest back to my ship to escape Endor’s moon, I regrouped with a Storm Trooper battalion and instinctively opened fire at them on sight. Years of Star Wars games have trained me to consider that white armor the enemy, and I was genuinely caught off guard as I remembered they were my allies.

Also, for the record, this mission had the glaring absence of any ewoks, dead or alive, despite the tree huts suspended overhead. I missed those fuzzy little guys, but I suppose I’m glad they weren’t around as I’d have to be the one to shoot them in their fuzzy faces, or face the wrath of their magically armor-piercing arrows and rocks.

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That being said, it’s not like Battlefront 2’s campaign is lacking in movie callbacks. Characters and story references are sprinkled throughout, and most of what I saw was treated with respect rather than just being included for fan service. The campaign’s plot moves away from the movies after that Endor mission, but the prologue mission before it is still rooted in reenacting Return of the Jedi.

That prologue has Iden breaking out of custody on a Rebel ship, but not before destroying an intercepted Imperial message with details about their ambush at Endor, meaning her actions had a tangible (if retconned) impact on the events of the film. At one point, I sneaked past a group of Rebels listening to a hologram of Admiral Ackbar detail the plans of their attack. These moments could have felt heavy-handed, but instead pushed Battlefront 2 deeper into a genuine Star Wars setting and made Iden’s story feel like a real, living part of that conflict.

There were surprises to be found in the campaign as well, with the opening of the prologue putting you in direct control of an Imperial droid, flying through vents and stunning Rebel guards to rescue Iden from captivity. It’s a cool and somewhat silly segment that helps set up abilities you can use later, though I was a little disappointed that the bot was only ever called “droid” by Iden and her squad. That prevented it from really becoming an interesting character like so many previous Star Wars droids have.

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Battlefront 2’s dialogue, though voiced well, can be pretty stiff - but it feels stiff in a traditionally Star Wars way. The Original Trilogy are some of my favorite movies, but exposition-heavy dialogue is pretty much a defining trait of Star Wars, and Battlefront 2 follows suit. It does a great job of replicating the style of the original Star Wars movies, for better and worse.

Blasting Rebel Scum

Still, moments like that droid mission helped assuage my fears that Battlefront 2’s chapters would be restricted to multiplayer-style game modes against bots. Looking at each mission in the menu, it seemed like they’d be broken up into discreet categories - sneaking, ground fights, space fights, etc. - but I was happy to see they were much more mixed than that.

“ Mid-mission variety was a big part of why I enjoyed the campaign so much.

The Endor mission concluded with me flying my TIE Fighter through the wreckage of the Death Star I’d just watched explode. Fighting different groups of flying AI targets was a lot of fun to manage - and while dodging space debris could be a thrilling challenge, it didn’t feel great to graze a piece of space-rubble toward the end of the mission, instantly explode, and then have to do the whole thing again.

The third mission I played started in my TIE Fighter as well, and I assumed the whole thing would take place there, but it wasn’t long before I boarded a Rebel ship and hopped out to fight my way through its crew. That culminated in a point-defense scenario to disable the ship before I jumped back out into space and returned to the dogfight. That mid-mission variety was a big part of why I enjoyed this level of the campaign so much.

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By comparison, the previous mission felt a lot less dynamic - which, to be fair, makes sense given how early on it takes place in the campaign. It mostly involved walking down a linear forest path, stopping to fight some Rebels, then repeating, which was fun if uninventive. There were a few interesting set pieces thrown in, like a hijacked AT-ST to fight, but that rhythm persisted. Thankfully, I really enjoy the gunplay and reload systems in Battlefront 2, which carry over from the multiplayer, but it felt a lot more like your standard big-budget shooter campaign.

“ If you take a gun off a rack, you’re stuck with it until you find a new one.

The biggest annoyance I encountered in Battlefront 2’s campaign is gun swapping. You can’t gather the weapon of a fallen enemy for some reason – instead, there are special crates placed around each level that let you customize your loadout. (That includes ability-altering Star Cards similar to the multiplayer - but these are unlocked solely through campaign progression, no randomized loot crates.) You can pick your gun from a surprisingly wide variety of options right off the bat... but Iden can disappointingly only carry one at a time.

That limit was frustrating in its own right, made worse by the fact that these crates were few and far between. There are individual gun racks scattered between them that let you swap out for a specific weapon, but once you drop a gun you can’t pick it back up. That means if you take a gun off a rack and there are no other racks around you, you’re stuck with it until you find one.

Discovering this odd design quirk the hard way soured my experience on Endor when I naively picked up a sniper rifle toward the beginning of the mission and was unable to swap back. I didn’t come across another crate or rack to swap weapons for at least half of the mission, which left me with a sniper rifle and nothing else for far longer than I wanted. That’s a stupid and easily fixable problem to have in a single-player FPS.

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While I loved the way the third mission pulled me between different situations, I’m nervous the loadout system’s lack of flexibility will lead to more frustrating moments throughout the campaign. Battlefront 2 shined brightly when it gave me a varied, Star Wars-filled toolbox and threw me into unexpected scenarios, so I’m hoping there’s more of that to come and less unsatisfying gun-choice traps to fall into.

But Iden Versio’s story is a compelling one so far, and it’s exciting that I honestly don’t know what direction it will go. It’s easy to assume that she’ll see the evil in the Empire and heroically join the Rebellion - there’s already a bit of foreshadowing in place to set that up - but I genuinely can’t tell if it’s going to be as simple as that.

It’s a strong start to a story I’m excited to finish, one that’s already made me care more about a villain I’ve been programmed to hate than I thought I would. Similar to my impressions of the multiplayer beta, Battlefront 2’s single-player isn’t without its problems, but I’m enjoying it so far nonetheless.