Star Wars Battlefront 2 is now free for PC and worth a second chance

Star Wars Battlefront 2: Celebration Edition is free at the Epic Games Store until Thursday, January 21st, and there has never been a better time to play.

The quality of Battlefront 2EA’s single-player campaign and the breadth of content in multiplayer modes at launch in 2017 were overshadowed by EA’s controversial monetization strategy, which relied heavily on cashiers. The players were upset and EA ended up completely overhauling the game’s economy. The drama dominated the headlines, and then it seemed like everyone just moved on. There was an indifferent apology at E3 the following year, and that was for most people.

That original version of the game doesn’t really exist anymore, and it hasn’t existed for years. No more updates are on the way and the original player’s terrible progression system has been overhauled, and what remains is a large bucket of single or multiplayer Star Wars content that spans all the films and connects to The Mandalorian too. You can even include Baby Yoda through a PC mod.

In other words, the noise has been removed and what remains is a pure signal. And there is enough interest in this type of large-scale Star Wars experience that new players crashed the servers when the game was offered for free last week.

Battlefront 2The marketing campaign is not perfect, but it is much better than it should be. It presents a great performance of Janina Gavankar as Iden Versio, an Imperial officer with the mission of finding and destroying the rebellion. In other words, you are one of the villains and that puts you in the uncomfortable position of having to do horrible things in the name of duty.

Here’s how Dave Tach put it in Polygon’s original review: “Versio’s internal struggles intensify as the narrative unfolds. It starts with the kind of personality that could buy the pro-Empire arguments about maintaining order and keeping the galaxy at peace that Emperor Palpatine tries to sell throughout the films. But few people can compartmentalize their morals when faced with doing or witnessing things that are clearly wrong. It is here, after the first missions, that Battlefront 2Versio’s story finds its foundation, and Versio’s character gains the necessary depth. “

It is this journey that makes the narrative so interesting, even if there are some awkward moments.

“There are more narrative detours and cameos, which I will not spoil here because they are catnip for Star Wars fans, but suffice it to say that the campaign is not as simple as it seems at first,” Tach continued. “The perspective of history occasionally deviates from Versio, which gives Battlefront 2 the opportunity to explore the central conflict from different points of view. The downside is that they are often more interesting as a story than a mission to be performed. “

Now that the savings have been removed and more content has been added to the multiplayer component, Battlefront 2The various modes are more like a buffet of cool Star Wars moments than any kind of cohesive set, but that’s part of the charm at this point.

Seeing all these characters, from so many ages and films, all working together or fighting each other in so many battles, modes and options, seems more like playing with my Star Wars toys in a literal sandbox than playing a traditional video game. Nothing is perfectly balanced, but that is almost irrelevant; everything looks, feels and sounds so perfectly Star Wars that the strange mix of characters and ways of playing gives everything a kind of cheerful and adventurous quality that was often lacking in the most recent films.

This is the perfect time to jump if the last time you thought about Battlefront 2 it was during a heated online debate about the economies of gambling. What exists today is a huge pile of images, sounds, environments, vehicles, characters, references and even plot twists, which act as a celebration of all things Star Wars.

It’s also free now, so you have nothing to lose, except a little time. What if The Mandalorian proved that fans want lighter and less serious Star Wars experiences, the Celebration Edition of Battlefront 2 it’s the perfect way to maintain that mood.