When Star Wars Battlefront 2 officially goes live on Friday, players will notice a 75% drop in the unlock costs for all of its major heroes (which includes villains). Players will still need to unlock these characters by spending credits, but what would have taken close to 40 hours to unlock is now down to about 10, according to DICE’s estimations. Mind you, there are some heroes that are unlocked from the start, but some of the more attractive options, like Luke Skywalker, were locked behind a “credit wall.”
The full unlock costs for heroes is as follows:
No doubt, DICE and Electronic Arts were under full damage control mode over the last few days, trying their best to calm player concerns regarding the steep unlock costs. To their credit, the studios did promise that changes would be made, but players feared they would be too slight to even make a difference. Requiring a player log 40 hours in Star Wars Battlefront 2 just to unlock Darth Vader seemed like an inordinate stipulation and fans were understandably upset.
Darth Vader: 15,000 Credits
Emperor Palpatine: 10,000 Credits
Chewbacca: 10,000 Credits
Leia Organa: 10,000 Credits
Iden Versio: 5,000 Credits
Things were made worse as DICE developers and EA representatives interacted with fans on social media and Reddit, and before long the studios had a PR mess on their hands. One of EA’s responses on the matter was so poorly received that it is currently one of the most downvoted posts in the history of Reddit. Clearly, the fan base wanted a change and would not rest until one was made.
While we are not interested in speculating about the motivation behind the original unlock times and DICE’s response, this should hopefully please those fans that were excited to get their hands on Star Wars Battlefront 2. As one of the last major video game releases of the year, Battlefront 2 was on a lot of people’s radars, but concern over microtransactions and loot boxes was putting a damper on that excitement.
Independent of all the multiplayer controversy, Star Wars Battlefront 2 also boasts a singleplayer campaign as well. However, most of the focus has been on these multiplayer concerns.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 releases November 17, 2017 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.