EA Finally Reveals Why Star Wars: Battlefront Didn’t Have A Single Player Campaign


Image: starwars.ea.com

Executive Vice President of EA Studios, Patrick Soderlund discussed why Star Wars Battlefront didn’t have single player campaign while speaking during EA’s Investor Day event. Soderlund also hinted that the single player campaign might be introduced in the sequel of the game.

The EA Studios boss mentioned that the decision to leave out the campaign mode from Star Wars Battlefront was purposeful. He said that the decision had to be made in order to release the game early to meet the Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

It is notable that Battlefront had content from Jakku which was also relevant in The Force Awakens. The game, however was based on the original Star Wars Trilogy.

Image: Gameinformer

Although the game was a commercial success, Soderlund said that he wasn’t happy with the average review score of the game. The game scores 72 in the PC and PlayStation 4 versions and 75 on Xbox One version on Metacritic.

He said, “The one thing that we got criticized for was the lack of a single-player campaign. It was conscious decision we made due to time and being able to launch the game side-by-side with the movie that came out to get the strongest possible impact.”

“I think the team created a really good game based on the premise that we had. I would say the game has done very well for us and reached a very different demographic than a traditional EA game. So from that perspective, it’s a success. Are we happy with the 75 rating? No. Is that something we’re going to cure going forward? Absolutely,” he added.

Image: Gamespot
Image: Gamespot

Despite not having a single-player campaign mode, Battlefront does have solo and offline ‘Missions’. He also detailed how EA is looking into the ‘depth and breadth’ before starting a new project.

“The depth and breadth is something that’s proving to be more and more important,” he said. “In a world where we want $60 up front and we expect people to stay with us over the course of a long time, the depth of what we offer is important.”

Soderlund added, “We have to go back and course correct that for another version if we were ever to build one.”

Image: YouTube
Image: YouTube

On the other hand, EA CFO Blake Jorgenssen said last week that they were working on a sequel to Battlefront which will include content from the recent movies and have better and bigger worlds.

Keeping in mind, Soderlund’s comments, it is safe to assume that the sequel will also feature a single-player campaign, which is bound to strike the right chords with fans.

Update: EA has now confirmed that Star Wars: Battlefront 2 will have a single player campaign. It has also confirmed the first trailer for the game will be shown during the upcoming Star Wars Celebration event in mid April.