The Dark aspect is defeated. Star Wars Battlefront – the 2004 one, not the 2015 one – lastly has on-line multiplayer once more. After over a half-decade of awkward workarounds and shuttered servers, a small replace to the Steam and GOG copies of Pandemic Studios’ galactic toybox lets us lastly return to Star Wars’ low-poly 64-player battlefields, assuming there are even sufficient gamers to fill a match lately.
Online multiplayer was quietly reintroduced to Battlefront this week, together with help for quite a few languages and several other undisclosed bug-fixes associated to display screen measurement (thanks, Eurogamer).
When it launched within the hazy days of 2004, Battlefront supported large on-line 64-player battles. But like many different games, these battles ceased when service supplier Gamespy shut down in 2014. Like its 2005 sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront II, you might nonetheless sorta play matches via some hacky workarounds, or else keep on with the actually-quite-good bot matches.
That sequel would finally have online support properly reintroduced. Two years later, and the identical favour’s been supplied to its smaller, easier predecessor. Pandemic infamously closed earlier than realising their very own imaginative and prescient for a 3rd Battlefront, one which discovered new life as a fan project for Battlefront II. The deliberate threequel promised colossal battles that scaled from floor skirmishes to orbital dogfights, a promise that type of lived on in EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II with Capital Supremacy.
Battlefront’s approaching a bit, 16 years later. It’s no looker, and the as soon as wide-open maps really feel surprisingly claustrophobic, however Pandemic knew tips on how to make a enjoyable wee arcadey romp. I by no means received to play it on-line again within the day, both, settling for making an attempt to interrupt out of maps and pull off daft X-Wing stunts with my brother in our Xbox copy manner again.
Its on-line woes additionally really feel surprisingly poignant at the moment. Star Wars Battlefront II saw its final update land this week, elevating curiosity – if not concern – over that game’s long-term lifespan. If you’re up for making an attempt out some quaint previous galactic firefights, Star Wars: Battlefront is at present going for half-off on Steam and GOG.
