Review: ‘Star Wars Battlefront’ is gorgeous but you may find its lack of depth disturbing

Star Wars Battlefront is the Star Wars game you are looking for. But it’s not necessarily the Star Wars game you want it to be.

It’s in a tricky spot. Released just one month before the much-hyped debut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the rebooted Battlefront is destined to cash in on rabid interest in the franchise. Fans of the films who might not otherwise care about video games have undoubtedly heard of it or seen it in action, while fans of the prior Battlefront games — and shooters in general —have been anticipating its return for years. So how exactly do you make an online shooter that will appeal to both casual and hardcore players?

You start, I suppose, by making it look incredible, and indeed, Star Wars Battlefront is without question the best-looking and most authentic-feeling Star Wars video game ever made. It drops you into Star Wars firefights that could have been taken from the cutting room floor of the original trilogy: beautiful, riveting battles that genuinely make you feel like you’re blasting through the icy caverns of Hoth, zipping through the forests of Endor, and mowing down stormtroopers on Tatooine.

But it’s not just a looker, it’s also a shooter. And for all its style, Batttlefront’s fun is mitigated by surprisingly limited gameplay that will undoubtedly leave some gamers feeling as unsatiated as a Sarlacc.

Who's scruffy-looking?

It will take you a while to notice that, though, because you’ll be so busy marveling at how ridiculously cool everything looks. Eschewing Episodes I-III in favor of the original trilogy (insert middle-aged fist pump), Star Wars Battlefront captures the vibe of romping around classic Star Wars in a way we’ve simply never witnessed before, and not just because of its buttery smooth frame rate, brilliant colors, and whiz-bang lighting effects.

Given full access to the Lucasfilm archives, the developers painstakingly recreated the iconic vehicles, weapons, and characters of Star Wars. An AT-ST walker stomps around with that slightly unstable, goofy gait captured on film; Darth Vader (not emo Anakin) menacingly stalks Rebels, his red lightsaber and Force-choke at the ready; swarms of blazingly fast laser blasts light up the battlefield. You can make out the various grooves and dents on the Millennium Falcon, which handles just like you’d expect for a bucket of bolts. The sun setting on Hoth, the burnt remains of a downed TIE-Fighter on Sullust – I guarantee you will at some point blurt out an overexcited interjection while roaming around Battlefront.

Related: In Pictures: Recreating Iconic Star Wars Elements in 'Star Wars Battlefront'

The game sounds the part, too. From the howl of a Tie-Fighter to Vader’s breathing issue to the unmistakable pew-pew of a Star Wars laser rifle, Battlefront’s audio immediately takes you back to wherever you were when you first sat through the trilogy. (Listen closely and you’ll hear a Wilhelm scream or two, too). One misstep? The Force isn’t so strong with the poor voice actors tasked with playing the game’s six heroes and villains.

Witness the power of this fully-operational battle station

The bulk of this game is designed to be played online. Nine modes are on offer, covering the gamut from standard death-match and control point types to a handful that take full advantage of the Star Wars atmosphere.

Walker Assault, the mode featured in the game’s popular beta test, is the biggie, pitting the Empire against the Rebellion in a massive, 40-player firefight. The Empire has the upper hand in a big way: Monstrous AT-AT walkers slowly stomp towards their goal, while the rebels try to take them down by hacking into beacons to give their overhead Y-Wings a shot. It’s Battlefront at its best, a chaotic mess of lasers and vehicles and glorious explosions.

Another 20-on-20 mode, Supremacy, is a tug-of-war variant that’s equally intense, but without the Walkers to worry about, it’s a more level playing field. Fans will also flock to Fighter Squadron, where they can fly TIE-Fighters and X-Wings in aerial dogfights. While fun for brief spurts, it doesn’t hold up next to the ground combat, and with only four different ships to fly (six if you count the Millennium Falcon and Slave-1 power-ups), it wears thin quickly.

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So does Heroes and Villains, a mode dedicated to Battlefront’s half-dozen playable stars. Luke, Leia, and Han represent the Rebels, while Imperials can play as Vader, Boba Fett, and Emperor Palpatine. Only the grumpiest of gamers will deny the thrill of leaping through the air as a Return of the Jedi-era Luke Skywalker, decked out in black, green lightsaber in hand; jet-packing around the battlefield as Boba Fett; or frying fools as Emperor Palpatine. But each character’s only got a handful of special abilities, and while dreams of a nuanced Luke and Vader lightsaber duel dance in your mind, the reality is more awkward — button-mashed baseball swings rather than fleet-footed fencing. These characters are built to turn the tide in large battles by decimating grunts, not by going toe to toe with each other.

The heroes and villains are available as temporary power-ups in other modes, so you’ll soon get used to seeing Luke whip through stormtroopers or Boba Fett pick off Rebels with his wrist rockets. Finding one of these in the middle of a battle is genuinely exciting, and while at first you’ll die pretty quickly, the more you play Battlefront, the more common it is to see a skilled Boba Fett (he’s a little overpowered) rack up absurd kill streaks.

The real stars are the game’s levels. Though only four distinct environments (Hoth, Endor, Tatooine, and Sullust) are currently in the game, they feel smartly customized for the various modes. The larger levels are spectacular; these worlds feel organic and true to Star Wars, not overtly designed as multiplayer video game maps. You’re not running around a level designer’s head, you’re running around Endor, you swear.

But even these levels lose their luster after some time. And while the Droid Run version of Endor is technically different from the Walker Assault version, they kind of feel the same. A new level set based on the desert planet Jakku (introduced in The Force Awakens) will liven things up when it arrives for free in a few weeks — as will the game’s first batch of paid downloadable content in early 2016 — but I could have used a dozen more maps already.

Search your feelings

No matter how you play, you’ll slowly gain experience to spend on new weapons, abilities, and skins, but this is where Battlefront’s casual dress starts to look a little out of place compared to its more formal shooter friends. It takes forever to earn interesting abilities, and even then, they’re not that interesting. Most of the guns feel pretty similar, and aside from a handful of notable gear (I’m looking at you, Jump Pack), it’s just not that interesting. A level 50 player may have unlocked a killer Twi’lek face, but they’re probably using the same gun as you. Within a few hours I was itching for more gear, guns, and options. The game feels thin. Compared to the Call of Dutys and Halos and, frankly, just about every major shooter on the market outside of Nintendo’s Splatoon, Battlefront’s lack of long-term depth is a buzzkill.

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I get that developer DICE wanted to make a more welcoming shooter — hop into a Call of Duty match as a newbie and you might run screaming from video games forever — but some of the choices seem weirdly counterintuitive. For instance, there is no team-based voice chat. You can chat with other players in your in-game party, but you can’t communicate at all with fellow stormtroopers during a match. Considering the objective-based nature of the bigger modes, it’s baffling and frustrating, particularly for Rebels trying to stave off AT-ATs. It's almost as if millions of voices suddenly cried out and were suddenly silenced, or something.

An alternative, of course, is to stay away from the masses. While there’s no story-based campaign here, you can have some decent fun in the game’s survival modes, which pit you against 15 increasingly challenging waves of enemies. You can play these offline alone or split-screen, but hooking up with a friend and tackling it co-operatively is much more fun. It’s the closest Battlefront comes to encouraging teamwork as you’ll have to work together to stay alive on the harder levels.

An artistic triumph, Star Wars Battlefront poses a difficult question: Do features make a game? If they do, this one’s got problems. Stand Battlefront next to most other multiplayer-oriented shooters and you’ll find it lacking in variety and depth. But none of those other shooters let me blast Slave-1 out of the sky from the Millennium Falcon, or take out an AT-ST with a well-timed thermal pod, or block ten laser blasts and force push a stormtrooper into a pool of lava. Fan service goes a long way, and when it’s done with this sort of care and attention, it makes the game’s various flaws go far, far away.

What’s Hot: Look at it!; listen to it!; fun hero powers; several thrilling modes

What’s Not: Several boring modes; lacks depth and longevity; needs more maps

Platform reviewed: PS4

When he isn't bulls-eyeing womp rats in his T-16, Ben Silverman is right here on Twitter.

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