What if Star Wars Battlefront 2 had launched without loot boxes? That is exactly what DICE’s design director Dennis Brännvall keeps going over in his mind.
“Not a week goes by without us thinking, ‘Imagine if we hadn’t launched with loot boxes the way we did,'” he said. Star Wars Battlefront 2’s loot box controversy was enough to get the attention of politicians and government officials.
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Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Brännvall and his team truly believes that Star Wars Battlefront 2 is a worthy sequel to the original. However, with both critics and players focusing on the hot topic of loot boxes instead of the game’s content, it garnered negative word of mouth, resulting in underwhelming sales.
“We would have been a different place, that’s for sure, because we truly believe the game is a worthy sequel to Battlefront 1 and lives up to the legacy of the Battlefront franchise,” Brännvall said.
Although paid loot boxes ended up being removed from Star Wars Battlefront 2 in early 2018, DICE had to struggle to convince the community that the game was worth their time. With several updates over the past two years, the consensus is that things are finally coming into place.
“We hit rock bottom in terms of player sentiment but now it’s climbing every month,” he said. “Now it’s a lot of fun. It wasn’t that much fun in the spring of 2018. That wasn’t the best time at DICE, that’s for sure.”
The upcoming content for Star Wars Battlefront 2 is playing a significant role in this idea. With new maps, modes and the Clone Commando class, as well as the tie-in with the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie hitting theatres this December, Star Wars Battlefront 2 may actually turn out to be the game that DICE envisioned a couple of years ago.
