*Spoilers* Starwars Battlefront 2 (2017) issues with the "story" *Spoilers*

[SuperiorIronman]

I have utterly no idea who Inferno squad is and the biggest problem being that I don't know who Iden Versio is. I have no idea who our main character is and I really struggled to give a damn about her adventures.
My biggest issue is how quickly she changes teams in this. It's not a struggle of ideals or what the Empire means to Iden, it's that she isn't comfortable with the destruction of her homeworld which is a fine enough catalyst for change, but yet she is comfortable with a Death Star. It's to say that her motivation didn't make much sense when you have to consider that Iden eventually would've had to deal with the Death Star destroying an Imperial world. Alderaann is stil a mass of space debris, so at the end of the day the Empire is only evil when it's her own planet but that leads me to my next point.

Why do I care about Vardos?
Seriously. The only time we go to it is in the mission where she defects. We know nothing about how this planet operates under the Empire, how Iden grew up here, her father is an admiral so what was that like? Shouldn't anything related to her father be explored here? We are introduced to her father and maybe a mission later we're turning on him. Why do I care? This is Iden's father and parents are important, but I have no reason to give a damn about Iden's. We know nothing about him other than being a commander so Iden's emotional moment with her father branding her traitor lacks a punch because we haven't met the guy. Stormtroopers on Vardos become just as faceless as the rebels we shot at 20 minutes ago. As well as when Inferno squad breaks up, I was hoping it was to develop everyone and send them on an arc. Del already met Luke and he may be predisposed to rebellion, Hask is loyal, and Iden has to struggle between duty and her friends. But no. Iden joins with del and never contemplates her decision over the course of the game. Never taking the time to find another way or adapt the Imperial ideology or mourn over her friends and coworkers she gladly kills. It never comes up, so when Vardos is getting wrecked and Del/Iden become rebels perhaps 30 minutes in, it means nothing if we don't know how Inferno squad operates. What are they are like in the Empire, and what that relationship looked like before Vardos? I know it's in a book but that's a cheap cop out if you're not going to explain it in-game where most of us are going to see it. It simply doesn't tell us enough about the dynamic for me to care about them. This is a story of rebellion, the marketing lied, Iden might as well be a silent protagonist for all it offers, but the entire team could've been mute because nobody changes post-Vardos.

By the time of Jakku it just didn't matter. Iden was going to make it because nobody is offering any overlap or questioning decisions. Iden is a good guy and she is up against bad guys. It's Jakku so the Empire will lose. This game has no punch to it. How can I be following a team for 4 hours (less considering a fourth of it is cameo missions) and know about as much about the cast if I had simply read a wiki page.

[Carabas]

I have utterly no idea who Inferno squad is and the biggest problem being that I don't know who Iden Versio is. I have no idea who our main character is and I really struggled to give a damn about her adventures.

She is a brandnew character created specifically for this game. She has no history beyond what is in the game, and she doesn't appear i any of the comics, novels, movies... (except of course the Battlefront II tie-in novel)

[Starter Set]

I didn't mind the main character switching to the Alliance too much, even if one could say that pretty much everything Dice and EA have have said about the campaign story during that past year was false advertisement, but the way it's done is just so very weak.

I mean, here they are on that planet i don't even remember the name, in order to pick up some spider looking lady cause the empire needs her for some godforsaken and evil reasons. And all of a sudden that Hask dude (is that his name?) is completely triggered cause the mission isn't going exactly as planned (was still going fine though) and bam, main character and her sidekick defect to the good side.

And that very awkward "decades later" transition? I don't know, weak man, weak.

That being said, the campaign still is somewhat worth doing thanks to the mission with Luke and the one with Leia who are AWESOME. (the one with Solo is decent too)

4 hours though lol. As Cyrano of Bergerac would say : "c'est un peu court jeune homme".

[godisawesome]

The story is admittedly much more on the side of adequate than awesome, which is sad, since they went out and got the writer from Spec-Ops: The Line, came up with a villainous protagonist to star in it, and painstakingly integrated numerous little elements from what we knew was supposed to be going on during the game's time period. The cast of characters is also pretty well chosen, and certain segments are excellent, in particular the Battle of Jakku itself and Luke's appearance.

It is possible the TLJ DLC they've attached to it will be more rewarding, but we'll have to find out.

Really, here's some basic things they could have done to make it more dramatic:

- Feature some earlier iterations of Operation Cinder, perhaps ones that initially seem to be practical military plans with some disputable operating ideas (like scuttling an orbital defense platform before the Rebels seize it... But Hask's orders have it dropped on the planet and populace)
- Have Del start voicing some objections to the elements of Cinder early on, to allow the group to start foreshadowing their divisions. Have there already be an element of doubt in Iden before Vardos is "purged;" give the character some clear horror at the possibility of pointless destruction and have her in denial-- initially, at least.
- Show some of that Imperial Warlord fighting that we've had confirmed as a part of the game, to show more sane and sympathetic Imperials alongside more clearly opputunistic ones, and to again test the group's loyalty.
- Vardos becomes the tipping point, as in the game itself, but after Iden and Del turn, have Iden be confronted with her lifetime of brainwashing about the Empire and the Rebellion; this was a woman totally comfortable with both Death Stars, who only saw the a Empire for how evil it was when it turned on her homeworld.
- While Del goes full Rebel, perhaps have Iden stand apart, since she's in a catch 22 in regards to her conscience, until she finally loses it in one battle and accepts responsibility for her past mistakes and finally goes full Rebel as well.
- Finally, have Hask participate in one battle founding the First Order, perhaps against the Chiss, to rub the irony in of their de facto alliance with the Empire being a bad idea.

[ChrisIII]

Seems the original BF2 did a better job at an imperial perspective, as your character was mainly a 501st Clone/Stormtrooper. Also the old TIE Fighter game as well; although in both cases the characters weren't really that fleshed out at all; but they certainly didn't have the characters defect (and both games end right before Endor....)

[ChrisIII]

I think that the DLC coming tomorrow with continue some of the story with the older Iden. The campaign sort of had a bit of a cliffhanger...

[Starter Set]

Meh, i have uninstalled the game. Too disgusted at EA to even give it a try.

[Schrecken]

I really wish they would have had you play as Imperial the entire way through. Having Iden totally indoctrinated by a lifetime of Imperial life, training, and nonstop propaganda-being completely loyal to the Empire and doing whatever is necessary to preserve it would have been fun to play. You would have been fighting Rebels using every dirty trick in the book, as well as trying to complete increasingly desperate missions given to you by incompetent Imperial officers floundering after the Emperor’s death.

In the Original BF2 you played as a Clone Trooper created to be a soldier and genetically modified to follow orders. Here you could play as an individual who could choose to reject the Empire, but chooses to stay and can justify every evil action they take down to the bitter end. They could have even kept the Rebellion parts by having you pose as a secret agent, sabotaging the Rebels, but getting thwarted at every turn. Maybe Del even really does decide to switch sides and you are forced to kill him to keep your cover.

[ChrisIII]

Anybody play the DLC? Although it first seems to be a kind of dealing with the First Order's Stormtrooper program, it soon pretty much drops that point entirely when they discover the stuff about the Dreadnought, and it pretty much becomes a "We have to get the plans to the rebels!!!" Star Wars plotline, if things weren't kind of a bit cliched already.

It seems to hint at future storylines involving Leia's allies in the outer rim, though.

[Vegeta]

I more or less enjoyed the story mode, I agree that the motive for switching sides was a little weak, particularly when her father is still part of the Imperial military. (A bit of dialogue I missed on the first play through, I spent most of the game wondering who her father was!) But it wasn't really any worse than most campaign more character motives. I liked Shriv, hopefully he'll be available as a playable hero in future updates.

[SuperiorIronman]

My biggest issue on Iden's motives move more towards how little we know of her by the time she does turn. It's frustratingly short as the Empire, and we could've gotten away with a traitor story arc if it had been earned. For someone who is defined as loyal, a commander, special forces, and at least supportive of a Death Star, Iden seems to go traitor far too easily. Sure it's her home-world but without any background on it it just feels hollow. Vardos in a way could be substituted for any planet and is likely why it seems to have been invented for this game. Vardos doesn't really have any personality to it either as it's a series of corridors that literally causes the game to become a corridor shooter.
Iden needed a few missions before Endor or at least 2 or three afterwards in order to justify the narrative shift because she becomes pretty one-note once she goes Rebel. The script doesn't offer anything more than "Former Spec-ops who is now totally loyal to the heroes". We needed more to define Iden as Kylo Ren is the only playable villain. Things are largely from the heroes perspective and that leads to a narrative bias in that we had never been supposed to see things from the Empire's point of view, and if not then why bother making Iden Imperial in the first place for how little it matters?

I have more issues with the kid and that stems from her being as one-note as her mother if not more. Problem here however is that the DLC being three levels long does not help in fleshing out her character. We don't know what her relationship with her mother is like. I was kind of hoping that the DLC would give Iden more to do but aside from being a mom nothing changes. Hask is weirdly enough the one that changed the most having gone from subordinate to commander to Officer that is Patriot to Fanatic. Hask had more to do and more of an arc and I'm continuously baffled as to why we aren't following him. Stories don't need happy endings to be good just as we don't have to sympathize with our protagonists but can still want to follow the adventures.

Between this and awful lag (are the devs ever going to come back from holiday?) Battlefront 2 remains disappointing to me.

[Iron_Legion87]

I thought it was fine for a video game campaign. I know there wouldn't be any big reveals that relates to the new movies but it did it's job and is a typical Star Wars story similar to Rouge One. I did find it cool that the compass that Luke gets in this game does make an appearance in Last Jedi and the ending of the new story DLC actually ties into the opening of Last Jedi.

[ChrisIII]

You know, with Finn, Kallus, Rae Sloane (well, sort of), Eli, Galen, Rook, Aphra Ciena etc. anybody think that maybe Disney might be making too many Imperial characters sympathetic? I mean, sure it happened a few times in the older stories (Baron Fel, Juno Eclipse, even Isard, Daala and Thrawn to an extent) but it seems to happen in pretty much every single Star Wars thing since the reorganization of the EU.

If anything, the Last Jedi actually seemed to go against this with Ren deciding to stick with the dark side.

[SuperiorIronman]

Disney does seem to have a problem with traitor Imperials, or to say the Empire in-general. Maybe it's a coincidence that they keep rolling out characters with this backstory but having two movies and a TV show use it coming into the game didn't feel right to me.