Categories: Originals

Star Wars: Battlefront — Battle of Jakku first impressions

There has been plenty of controversy between gamers about the new Star Wars: Battlefront game; some players feel like there isn’t much content to keep the game relevant and the constant reminder of the $50 season pass doesn’t help. But EA is not all bad, they have just released the first piece of free DLC for the game — Battle of Jakku and it's definitely pretty fun. Battle of Jakku is available now to download for everyone who preordered the game while others will have to wait until Dec. 8th.

As you probably already know, the Battle of Jakku takes place 29 years before Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which will most likely be addressed in the movie that releases later this month on December 18th, but as of now, we don’t know much of what's going on this planet. The map layout does a great job showing off a huge battle that is going down with shot down AT-ATs scattered across the map to a huge space battle between the Rebels and the Empire above you. The atmosphere for Battle of Jakku is on point, just from playing on this map you can expect to see a massive battle to go down in the movie.

The biggest feature added with this free DLC is not just the 2 new maps, but also a brand new game mode — Turning Point. This new mode shares very similar themes to Battlefield's Rush mode, the Rebels must capture one of the 3 control points to advance throughout the map. While the Rebels keep pushing up, the Empire must defend these points until the timer runs out and whenever a Rebel captures a point, the timer gets bumped back up. Turning Point is a back and forth battle, which EA seems to have balanced a little bit better from other modes.It’s been already stated by EA that the Empire has the upper hand in Walker Assault, but in Turning Point, it seems like the Rebels have the upper hand, ever so slightly. The Rebels for unknown reasons are on the offense this time around, which is also pretty interesting.

The Battle of Jakku map pack doesn’t just include the main ‘Graveyard of Giants’ map, but two — The second map is called Goazan Badlands. While Graveyard of Giants is used for big battle games like Walker Assault, Turning Point, and Supremacy, the Gozan Badlands are used for the smaller game modes like Blast, Drop Zone, Hero Hunt, Cargo, Heroes vs. Villains and Droid Run. Players can also play Fighter Squadron map that takes place above the Graveyard of Giants, which is pretty epic, because like I said earlier when you look up you see a massive battle within the air, so when playing Fighter Squadron you are "technically" playing that counterpart.

The free Battle of Jakku map brings plenty of new variety to Battlefront, it’s a little too early to be already wanting more maps, but Jakku does do a good job on holding on to their players. Over at the official EA Battlefront website, DICE's executive VP, Patrick Söderlund stated that there will be more free DLC down the pipeline which is good news for players who opt not to buy the season pass.

"Of course, we are also planning to support Star Wars Battlefront with new content well into the future. We will be adding more of what you love about the game, like new maps and Star Cards, for free in the coming months, in addition to all of the content we have coming with Season Pass. We’ll have more to share soon."

The Battle of Jakku is one of the best maps out there at the moment, so for a free download price and with the upcoming release of Star Wars: the Force Awakens, it's hard to not be interested in giving it a go. The new mode is also fun, but at the moment, Turning Point is only available to the Graveyard of Giants map, which is kind of a bummer.

Did any of you try the new Battle of Jakku map yet? How do you feel about it? Let us know in the comments below! And to read our full review of Star Wars: Battlefront, click here.

Jordan Biazzo

News writer from New York, super fan of the Mass Effect trilogy and has finally got to play through Metal Gear 5: The Phantom Pain. Follow me on Twitter @TheJordanBiazzo