Ugh, I HATE this pay to play model of gaming. It’s been around for a long time, but has been getting dramatically worse in recent years. And this sounds like possibly the worst offense yet.

I was tremendously disappointed when I got the previous battlefront only to find out the majority of the game was only available for subscription based multiplayer. And that on top of that, most of the really awesome maps and heroes were only available through paid extra downloads. It’s like I paid $60 for the first third of a game and then needed to spend an extra $100 for one measly year of access to the rest. Which really pissed me off because it clearly had the potential to be the best Star Wars game ever. Thankfully they did eventually do an update that gave you some of the better gameplay modes in single player and it was enough to make me reasonably happy with the game experience. But it still left a sour taste in my mouth. And it still annoys me that, even if I was willing to pay for the DLC (like Chewie, Dengar, Vader’s TIE Fighter, awesome OT gaming maps, etc) I wouldn’t get to use a lot of it in single player, which is all I care to play.

Battlefront II looked like an amazing follow up that I was really excited about. It had an actual single player story campaign and all kinds of new locations and characters from the full spectrum of the Star Wars universe. And they managed once again to find a way to drop a massive downer on top of it that sucks all that fun and excitement right out. It feels like a massive bait and switch. And that’s frustrating as all heck.

While I don’t agree with the childish extremes some customers have used to express their dissatisfaction, I do think their anger and frustration is totally justified. This is a predatory and disingenuous business model that aggressively takes advantage of its most loyal customers. I know that’s nothing new in the world, but it doesn’t make it right.