Prior to the beta’s release, many fans continually criticized the sci-fi shooter by calling it nothing more than a Battlefield clone, while DICE and Electronic Arts vehemently denied the comparison as being valid. Bearing that in mind, developers knew they had an uphill battle ahead. Regarding the scrutiny of the game, Ingvarsdottir wrote:
After it was announced that the test for Star Wars Battlefront was originally going to end on Monday of this week, the beta got extended for an additional 24 hours, and is set to end soon. Undoubtedly, the added time for players to jump in on the action helped goose the final numbers of active users.
“And like Han Solo at the end of A New Hope, we’re glad you showed up. Even more importantly than just showing up, you’ve been spending a lot of time playing, having a great time and leaving us some invaluable feedback, as we continue to tune and balance the game until launch on November 17, 2015 in North America, and November 19, 2015 in Europe.”
Based on the results of the Battlefront beta, it’s obvious that EA is confident in potential sales for the title, as it announced the game’s Season Pass yesterday. In fact, the publisher’s faith in its product has been intact for a while, as the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Blake Jorgensen, is convinced Star Wars Battlefront will hit its sales target of moving 9-10 million units during fiscal year 2016—that is, through March 31, 2016.
Considering the beta’s participants, 9 million players is no meager figure. Although there will definitely be plenty of fans who recently played the limited offerings of Star Wars Battlefront’s beta and didn’t care for it, those that enjoyed the gameplay will probably go on to purchase the complete version upon release. Not to mention, there will surely even be some testers who had quibbles with the title, but will buy it in order to get the full experience, so it’s highly likely that DICE and EA have a blockbuster on their hands.
Did you take part in the Star Wars Battlefront beta? If so, head on over to our beta discussion and let us know what you think.
Star Wars Battlefront is set to release on November 17, 2015 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: Electronic Arts – Star Wars (via GameSpot)
