Star Wars Battlefront Classics Collection Review

It feels strange coming back to Star Wars Battlefront after all these years. After EA’s closure of Pandemic Studios, after the disappointment of the Star Wars sequel film trilogy, and after the rollercoaster that was EA’s Battlefront reboots, having the chance to step back to the early 2000s of Star Wars shooters had an immediate appeal to it.

Even stranger is considering that it’s been six years since 2017’s Battlefront II. There’s no hint of another sequel to EA and DICE’s take on the series –the calamitous launch and fallout from invasive microtransactions probably put paid to that much more than EA’s loss of the exclusive rights to make Star Wars licence.

Something else we wouldn’t have had on our bingo cards in a galaxy far, far away is a remaster of the original Battlefront games from almost 20 years ago. Then again, looking at how many Star Wars games Aspyr has already remastered, it seemed almost inevitable.

So, what exactly do you get in this package? The Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection, to give the bundle its full name, includes both sci-fi shooters as well as bonus content that wasn’t available on all platforms when these games first launched. The game’s core is based on the original PC releases – so all platforms have 64-player battles – but it’s great to see previously exclusive content from the various console versions fed back into that.

If you’re completely new to Star Wars Battlefront, the clue is in the name. You’ll be thrust into many of the film series’ cinematic showdowns, gunning down enemy troopers, droids, and rebels from Dagobah to Kamino. Both games feature a story-driven campaign as well as the fan-favourite Galactic Conquest mode in which players look to dominate a star system by capturing planets, collecting resources, and unlocking bonuses. Whether playing online, solo, or splitscreen, you can also dive into competitive matches with cross-play enabled between PlayStation and Xbox platforms.

In terms of gameplay, the third person shooting is unsurprisingly primitive compared to today’s standards with an awkward lack of player mobility or environmental interactions. Running and gunning is very much the focus here, throwing yourself at objectives while making clever use of powerful vehicles and artillery. Despite being a staple for PC shooters at the time, giving players the options to choose from several classes – each without their own unique role and loadout – felt like a revolution for the console crowd.

It’s crazy to think that Pandemic launched a sequel to the original Battlefront a little over a year after its release. Despite this short turnaround, Battlefront II made a number of major improvements, namely the introduction of space battles and playable heroes. Those who owned a copy back in the day will have no doubt spent a fair chunk of time playing Hero Assault, staging showdowns between an all-star cast of heroes and villains from both the original trilogy and its prequels.

With console network play still in its infancy at the time – especially on PlayStation – this was one part of the Star Wars Battlefront Classics Collection I was eager to try out for the first time. For many, the simple joy of competing against the game’s bots will be more than enough to scratch that nostalgic itch, but playing against other humans definitely ramps up the fun factor.

That said, this isn’t without its own foibles. There’s no cross-platform multiplayer (arguably a good thing given competitive advantages between PC and console), and the game suffered from some major server troubles at launch, which have thankfully been cleared up in the weeks that followed.