Star Wars Battlefront: Galactic Conquest

There's a hole in my heart 

Star Wars Battlefront has some priors to it's name. It's been around since long before EA acquired the license, and although DICE have pigheadedly called it a total rip-off of their Battlefield games simply with a lazy Star Wars skin slathered on top, the truth is that Battlefront did a lot of its own cool things to stand out from the crowd. Some of which have yet to be even transposed to the EA owned version of Battlefront and is, in my opinion, what is missing from the new franchise as it currently stands. I am, of course, talking about the Galactic Conquest game mode which was, in my opinion, the beating heart at the centre of the original Battlefront. The buzzing core that all the other bells and whistles work in tandem to stabilize and make work; which would be why before DICE came along and 'streamlined the package' every single Battlefront game made a considerable effort to push that core mode forward in some small way.

Galactic Conquest is a mode wherein the tutorials of story mode are put to the test and the player is lined up in a serious of consequential battles in an effort to 'turn the tide of the galactic war in their favour'. In the first game this meant planning a campaign across a handful of planets to pursue, through conflict, control of planets that provided powerful benefits to the victor, providing the basis for a dynamic and evolving war which would play out differently everytime you played. Some bonuses were extra reinforcement numbers that would kick in when you're losing, some were passive regen buffs for all soldiers, sabotage on enemy vehicles, and even summoning an AI 'hero unit' to the battlefield. Galactic Conquest would string together all these battles to a loose and free narrative so that players could launch their very own 'Star War' and succeed or fail by their own merits.

The very first Battlefront had a basic model for this, much like I just described. At the start of each 'round' both teams would choose which bonus they were activating from the planets that they owned, and the attacking team would pick a planet they didn't own to attack. Then a full match would play out on that attacked planet and the winning team would take control of that location and the bonus it provided. There were some ancillary features too, such as the Dead Star which would build up power during each fight and could eventually be used to destroy a planet totally and deny it's benefits for the rest of that campaign, but aside from that it was very straightforward. Like an instant action playlist with a tincture of strategic choice mixed into the recipe somewhere along the line.

Battlefront 2, as one would expect, evolved on this idea greatly. It would have to, considering that basic fundamentals of the game had evolved to the tune of making complex player classes and issues of 'unlocking', and throwing in playable hero classes instead of the AI controlled folk of Battlefront 1. 2's Conquest took place over a fully mapped out galaxy with the various battlegrounds given specific placing and travel links between them via hyperways. This is to serve the new gameplay, wherein players can't just choose willy-nilly whatever planet they want to invade, instead now both teams have a capital ship which they manually move around this map like a gameboard and have to mount their attacks from there. This added the layer of movement strategy to the campaign, as well as added the possibility for space combat when two capital ships meet each other on the same tile. And there were even more peculiarities from there.

The classes that need to be unlocked through points in the gameplay had even more restrictions on them in Galactic conquest in that they needed to be bought from an unlock screen in order to be available during each match in the first place using a Credits system that relates to how well you're currently doing in the war. This simulates the development of technology throughout the campaign, as well as resource draining for those that are losing. However, since Credits were rewarded to the winners it did inadvertently sort of mean that those who win battles get advantages to help them win even more in the long run, creating a snowball effect where the winner is pretty easily always in the lead from the early game. Credits can also be used to buy another capital ship if you want to mount a new offensive front, or to buy those bonuses that were previously restricted to planet ownership, freeing up their potential for strategy.

On PSP, the Battlefront games entered something of a holding pattern with incremental improvements to the games as they went. As such the Galactic conquest mode for this era was actually pretty static. Much of the basic framework was exactly the same as Battlefront 2, except now there were no capital ships. The player actually mounted attacks from one planet to another by mobilising a number of units from each garrison. Meaning that each planet had a certain number of defenders that related directly to how much stock both sides would have should there be a battle. This means that for maps where you feel confidant that you have the upper hand, you could do what I often did and position no more than 10 defenders so that you can use those other spare forces on the front line. This also puts a greater emphasis on each unit life taken and creates the possibility of Pyrrhic victories. 

'Star Wars Battlefront' went without a major part of it's identity when it was shipped off to DICE without this mode present in any way shape or form. Instead DICE just tried to convert the game into the Battlefield reskin they accused the original of being all those years ago and totally discarded anything that failed to slide smoothly into that narrative. (Including the storymode) As Battlefront exists today, with a heavy emphasis on online and multiplayer action, I've gone back and forth on trying to envision how a Galactic Conquest mode would even fit into that vision. The original succeeded because Battlefront back then was designed to cater to single player and split-screen players as much as online players, but EA could give less of a crap about people who don't play online and that is clear in the lack of offline functionality for the original EA Battlefront. So does this mean that a Galactic Conquest mode is out of the question?

Well first we'd have to see a Battlefront 3, and that seems like a precarious ask given that DICE is currently on-the-ropes when it comes to deciding whether or not they've even worthy to hold their current series of Battlefield games. But perhaps if Respawn does take control of Battlefield it'll give DICE a chance to refocus themselves on their side project, Battlefront, which they tossed away unceremoniously so long ago. Maybe in such an instance, where DICE are desperate to prove themselves, we'll see an actual effort put in to test the limits of Online play and design some brand new version of Galactic Conquest that marries the old with the new direction. Or maybe Battlefront 3 will just never be made at all. Who's to say?