EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II is only a couple days away from release, hitting platforms on Nov. 17, but fans are already outraged over certain aspects of the game.
More specifically, the community is upset that major characters will be initially unavailable to play as, and can only be unlocked in-game credits.
These in-game credits, according to Reddit users, will take dozens of hours to unlock. The game does offer an alternative method to gaining them, something that’s caused even more controversy — paying real, actual money.
By paying some set amount of money (no specific number has been set, but one popular Reddit post is titled “Seriously? I paid $80 to have Vader Locked?”) players get access to randomized loot crates with currency to unlock the heroes. And this is on top of the $60+ it cost to initially buy the game, mind you.
The characters that are locked include that of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Princess Leia and so on. Basically any major character in the Star Wars Universe with a lightsaber.
The previous Battlefront games weren’t received highly by fans either, but they had no such system as the one now being introduced. In those outings, you paid for the game up front and it came with all the characters already unlocked.
EA later released a statement via Reddit, one that didn’t help calm the fans down all too well.
"The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes. 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 basis, and we’ll be making constant adjustments to ensure that players have challenges that are compelling, rewarding and of course attainable via gameplay."
This response has failed to ease any of the fans unrest. One Reddit user responded by saying: “Locking iconic characters behind credit walls that will take dozens of hours to get one is just insane, especially when I am willing to bet you have tons of heroes planned which will be behind similar paywalls? You cannot ever attain a sense of pride and accomplishment from that, because most sane people will give up long before this.”
Following the backlash for Battlefront II, some EA developers have received personal attacks and death threats, according to CNBC.
Since then, executive producer John Wasilzyk has also issued a lengthy statement on EA’s website. “It’s clear that more changes were needed,” he writes. The statement mentions that the amount of credits needed to unlock top heroes is being reduced by 75% and that they will continue making changes to improve the game.
Watch the gameplay trailer for Star Wars Battlefront II here and let us know if you're mad about this news in the comments below (just keep it civil).