Aspyr is under fire over the disastrous launch of the highly anticipated Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, which is plagued with server issues, bugs, and more.
For those wondering if this is under exaggerated, it's not. Now my experience is on the Switch.
This issues I saw in my time before I got refunded was as follow. Texture Flickering and Shadow Flickering (hard to see as a screen shot so this is the worse I saw)
Textures that are still in 4:3 and not 16:9
Random Texture floating when they shouldn't be
The lighting failing on the Bridges on the Naboo Map
And the FMV's being so compressed you can see the compression artifacting (and this is a game that ~34GB)
Looking at the 34GB install, I’m guessing it’s some kind of massive emulation layer; it’s scary to say but I feel like we’ve just run out of game developers that can genuinely code against the machine itself to optimize install size and performance.
When you look back on the meager specs of old consoles and what they got running there, it now feels more and more impressive.
The controls are "fine" for the most part. If you were on an Xbox controller it would work. Space Battles in Battlefront II are an improvement, but the same treatment was never made to Battlefront 1. If I had to complain about anything, it's that the auto aim needs to be more sensitive and when you blast an enemy it auto locks on them like the console games. Mouse and keyboard this would be annoying but on controller it's necessary.
Well I’m glad you laying it out for us, I’ve got a better idea what I’m dealing with. And it really does miff me on how unnecessarily wasteful the game is with storage
Ditto, I sadly didn't go online so no comment there. Well I mean I tried once and I couldn't connect so I just jumped into instant action. But yeah the storage requirements are a bit unrealistic on Switch. I don't think you can even play it on OG switch without a Micro SD Card.
Another game launch, another broken game. How hard is it to just release a game that works? This is a port as well - pretty much their entire job with this was fixing issues and optimisation
Harder than delivering shit and cashing in just as much. The grab&run simply is more profitable than actually putting in the work - especially since there seem to be no palpable negative consequences.
I want to blame the company but from their point of view this business model works so I understand why it keeps happening.
Steam refunds are great for situations like these but I doubt the average casual knows how easy it is. The other platforms are much stricter on refunds.
There's also the culture shift of gamers defending broken releases with "at least they fixed it!" Or "they released a roadmap for future fixes" that encourages early releases.
Sear the name Aspyr into your mind, and look out for them when they redo old star wars games like this. An underwhelming experience is what I've come to expect from their attempts at Jedi Outcast/Academy and Republic Commando on Switch.
The best you can expect from them is bare minimum passably running games, sort of the antithesis to Night Dive
Sear the name Embracer into your mind. This is what's going to happen with any studio owned by them. This is what ruthlessly taking a blowtorch to all of your studios headcounts gets you.
Generally speaking, game devs never like putting out a bad product. It's a creative industry, and one that people go into because they love games (otherwise they'd be working in fintech where the pay is much better). I guarantee it was Embracer who made the call to launch this product in its current broken state, and probably also Embracer who put so little money aside for server infrastructure.
It is a bit more involved than your typical battlefront match, but the reward is a Star Wars game we could have only dreamed of in the past. I can't overstate how good of a mod this is.
Night Dive should've been given some of these old Lucas Arts SW games. These were my childhood, and I've watched as Aspyr has been assigned game after game of my childhood to be released on modern platforms, and time and time again they either don't give enough of a shit to do anything more than get them running (sometimes barely that, Republic Commando runs worse on a switch than an original Xbox), or they're not given the proper time or financial budget to pull it off.
Weren’t there a bunch of mods for the original releases that upgraded textures, added maps and factions and all that? Why would anyone buy these rereleases instead?
From what I read on Steam: Three servers, 64 players max each. Embarrassingly miniscule for one of the best selling, best received Star Wars games of its time, if not of all time. You'd expect more than 192 people would buy your game on launch, especially something this big.