Star Wars Battlefront 2 Makes Heroes Free, Adds Cosmetics

It’s been a long time since the Star Wars Battlefront 2 controversy put EA firmly at the top of the games industry's crapheap and made the whole world turn its attention to the evils of loot boxes. EA has promised since day one of the shutdown that the loot boxes would one day return, and now, it appears that day is here, as EA has announced in a big ol’ blog post that paid loot boxes are back… and they’re doing what they really should have done from the beginning and have nothing except cosmetics inside them, allowing you to customize your heroes and your troops to your desires.

On top of that, the old star cards – the ones that boost stats – will now be earned entirely in-game. As you gain “experience” with a certain class or hero, you’ll unlock said cards to improve certain qualities of your performance, growing stronger over time. So their radical solution to the problem is to… just use the same ol’ level-up mechanics games invented like thirty years ago. What a company of innovators.

Sarcasm aside, there’s one objectively good thing about these updates: all those super-expensive heroes that you either had to grind forever for or buy with real money? They’re all going to be free now. Plus, you get to keep all your current Star Cards, so you won’t lose your “progress”, as the case may be. The one downside is that as far as I can tell, you don’t get any sort of refund if you paid money or credits to unlock a hero the old-fashioned way, so if you were an idiot and decided to buy all the heroes on day one, then you’re gonna be out a couple of bucks.

Still, for most people, it’s probably too little too late. Old players might come back to check it out, but I wouldn’t expect this to move many copies.