Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection has everything we could’ve wanted, yet still has a ways to go

We’re currently living in a golden age of remasters and re-releases, Star Wars or otherwise, if that’s your jam. Given that official preservation of retro video games sucks so much, this is the next best thing for now. After Aspyr’s pretty good streak with LucasArts classics and other IPs like Tomb Raider, expectations for the Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection were high. Does it shine as much as other comebacks from a galaxy far, far away though?

It’s difficult to overstate how important the original Star Wars Battlefront games, developed by Pandemic Studios, were and still are. They’re some of the most glowing examples of finding success by simply transferring a tried-and-tested ‘original’ formula to a renowned entertainment property. With EA DICE’s early Battlefield games blowing up, someone though it’d be a great idea to do that but Star Wars. Turns out, they were damn right.

Ironically, DICE ended up rebooting the best-selling Star Wars video game franchise once Disney took over Lucasfilm and everything they owned. Star Wars Battlefront ’15 largely felt rushed to meet the deadline set around The Force Awakens, and its 2017 sequel had a terrible launch and hit many road bumps before finally achieving cult status (it retains a dedicated community to this day).

The fact remains that many gamers still reject the modern Battlefront releases and simply kept playing the modded-to-hell-and-back originals on PC. Modern consoles, however, never received a re-release of those two games… until now. Mind you, they seem to work just fine on Xbox Series consoles through backwards compatibility, but the original OG Battlefront console releases always lagged features-wise behind their PC counterparts. Aspyr’s refreshed collection fixes that… mostly.

All in all, the time I’ve spent playing the Battlefront Classic Collection so far has been more fun than trying to approach the original releases nearly 20 years later (I never stopped playing them). While they remain largely untouched on the surface, true Battlefront sickos will notice a number of small tweaks and subtle improvements, especially when it comes to bringing PC-specific features to consoles and dumping the dull Battlefront 2 PC menu in favor of the cinematic one found in the PS2/Xbox releases.

On top of the addition of certain BF1 maps to BF2, opening up XL mode (64v64 chaos) to all platforms, and restoring cut content such as Asajj Ventress and Kit Fisto (originally Xbox exclusives), there are subtle yet welcome changes to lighting and crisper textures that range from quite good to AI-upscaled garbage that only bloated the file size. NPC AI remains as dumb as a brick, only becoming useful with large numbers and players steering them in the right direction, but that’s just how we all remember the OG Battlefronts.

Even more important for PC players (the collective who has tinkered with these games for a very long time) is the addition of proper gamepad support, which makes the Steam Deck run these games perfectly out-of-the-box. This is by far one of my favorite improvements, together with split-screen multiplayer and achievements that will keep even the most veteran players who want to show their love for these classics busy for a while. Hey, any excuse to keep hammering those Bespin Platforms bridges hard is welcome.

The other side of the coin (credit?) is that PC players had either already ‘unlocked’ most of the new features over the years or already enjoyed them back in the day. Therefore, this release, which packs a hefty price tag, is harder to recommend to them if they don’t care much about achievements, split-screen, and gamepad support. With hundreds (if not thousands) of hours poured into the originals across consoles and PC, I can safely say, however, that they’ve never felt snappier and better adjusted to modern systems despite some nasty bugs and glaring issues.

Some of these problems, such as some audio cues and menus misbehaving, were acknowledged pre-release by Aspyr and are on track to be patched out. Nothing out of the ordinary. Far more worrying are issues such as graphical glitches that weren’t there before, ability and equipment icons that take a while to refresh while switching classes, or online capabilities that haven’t been properly tested. For example, the fact that sever-hosting player’s FPS remain tied to default tick rates in BF2 is embarrassing to say the least, especially when a quick fix has been around for years.

Most of these issues don’t affect the offline experience, which remains as packed as you remember and far better than many modern games’ offerings (Galactic Conquest is still GOATed), but they definitely sour the overall happy experience and might impact the early sales and general opinion surrounding an otherwise solid re-release of some of the most beloved Star Wars games ever. At the moment, I’d personally recommend for some crucial patches to drop if you’re mostly interested in playing online.

Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection so far feels like an important release for non-PC gamers who want a healthy dose of nostalgia (through games that have actually aged well) and a middling one for folks who never left the most memorable Star Wars battlefields of all time.

History has told us that Aspyr can right their wrongs though. I only wish we didn’t have to go in 2024 through another problematic Star Wars Battlefront launch cycle.