STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II

Star Wars Battlefront II is a 2017 action shooter video game developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It is based on the Star Wars franchise, and is the fourth main installment of the Star Wars: Battlefront series and a sequel to the 2015 reboot of the series. The game features both single-player and multiplayer modes and includes more content than its predecessor. The single-player campaign is set between the films Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, and follows an original character, Iden Versio, the commander of an Imperial special ops strike force dubbed Inferno Squad. Most of the story takes place in the franchise's fictional galaxy during the final year of the Galactic Civil War, before the Empire's definitive defeat at the Battle of Jakku. Development of the title began by May 2016. The then-recently established studio Motive Studios was responsible for the single player campaign, and Criterion Games was responsible for the starfighter gameplay and mechanics. It was soon announced that the title would feature content from the sequel and prequel trilogies of films. Prior to launch, the game came under widespread criticism when players discovered that the game's loot boxes was tied to progression, which could give players substantial gameplay advantages if purchased with real money. EA initially defended the lootboxes, leading to further controversy, though the company eventually disabled microtransactions in the game. Following launch, a new progression system was introduced. The game was released worldwide on November 17, 2017, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. Battlefront II received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the multiplayer, gameplay, balancing, visuals, and variety, but criticism for its single-player modes, campaign, microtransactions, and progression system. After its release, the game received numerous content additions through free updates, some of them tie-ins to recently-released content, in an attempt to repair its reputation after launch, which brought in a large number of new players. These updates ended on April 29, 2020, after Electronic Arts concluded that the game had reached its desired number of players and had substantially improved since the initial release. A Celebration Edition of the game, which includes all in-game cosmetic options, was released on December 5, 2019.