It’ll probably come as no surprise that today’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 ‘AMA’ event on Reddit provided few meaningful answers. The three participants from DICE, executive producer John Wasilczyk, associate design director Dennis Brannvall, and producer Paul Keslin, all stuck to vague PR platitudes.
They’re not exactly in a great position to do anything else. It’s possible that some or all of them had a direct hand in the Battlefront 2 progression system that’s drawing criticism from almost every quarter, but unlikely. Even if they did, and now have regrets, there’s absolutely no way they’re going to decry the game’s design two days before its worldwide release. We’d all enjoy seeing one of them go rogue and blast the unlock times, loot box systems, and all the rest, but it would more than likely cost that person their job.
So, instead of that, we got stuff like “We’re committed to making progression a fun experience for all of our players” and “We’re going to continue adjusting the crate systems, content, and progression mechanics to hit a point that gives players a great, balanced experience at all skill levels.” Or replies that rather missed the point, like “I think crates can be a fun addition as long as you don’t feel forced to engage with them in order to progress.”
Nothing inflammatory, vague hopes that things might be changed or tweaked a bit in future, and almost no direct engagement with the broader issues of how these systems affect the games they’re in. You can find a very helpful compiled list of all the responses here, but you’re unlikely to read anything that doesn’t sound like its gone through an automatic PR filter. Again, that’s to be expected, but it made the whole event rather pointless.
