Unlike other games I’ve written about for Polygon, I’m not discovering an underrated game from the past. Battlefront 2 seems to keep finding ways to reach new audiences, whether that’s the backwards compatibility of Xbox One, or GOG updating the PC version with online server support. A recent Games with Gold promotion brought the game into the digital libraries of every Xbox Live subscriber. I’m not the only one playing the original Star Wars: Battlefront 2 in 2019. “Heroes” are slippery creatures with underwhelming abilities whose sense of power was projected by my young mind’s amazement at being Luke Skywalker. Previously thrilling space battles are rote exercises in destroying the same weak points against the same backgrounds, time and time again. What I remember as chaotic scenes of blaster fire are now revealed to be smooth landscapes filled with simplistic AI. Star Wars: Battlefront 2 didn’t age as well as I had thought it did.
