The team behindStar Wars Battlefront 2yesterday released a new update for the game - the original 2005 version, that is, rather thanthe 2017 title of loot box infamy. The official description for the February 2021 Hotfix Update is a simple one: “Addresses a number of issues with graphic resolution and controller support in the game.”
It may seem unusual that a 16-year-old game is still getting updates, butStar Wars Battlefront 2still enjoys a healthy player base even this long after its launch. Updates released in 2018 and 2017 aimed to reinstate and fix up multiplayer support for the game, which lay dormant for several years after GameSpy’s shutdown in 2014, along with performance tweaks to help it run smoothly on newer computers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the legwork for these updates was done by GOG, a service dedicated to bringing older games into the modern age.
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UnlikepreviousBattlefrontupdates, though, this latest update seems to have broken more than it’s fixed. Although it was intended to implement controller support in menus and upscale menu text for higher resolutions, the hotfix appears to have broken several features along the way. Indeed, even one of the main points of the update doesn’t seem to have quite taken, with several menus still unresponsive to controller input. On top of that, players' custom keybinds have been reset, the roll command no longer works for some users, mod support has gone haywire and, perhaps most bizarrely of all, several players report that tapping the “print screen” key crashes the game altogether.
Fans have taken to Reddit and the Steam forums to protest the broken hotfix (hotbreak?), and the developers appear to have taken note. A day after the patch went live, another update hit the Steam page simply saying, “Reverting to the previous version.”
This isn’t necessarily a death knell for the proposed fixes to the game, though. When previous updates forBattlefront 2and its prequel have dropped, there’s often been an adjustment period while the team irons out any difficulties or incompatibilities. The same will likely happen for this one, even despite its egregious issues, and no doubt an incoming hotfix will ensure the venerable shooter’s legacy will live on. Which may be more than can be said for its successor, which gotits official final content update, “Battle on Scarif”, last year.
Assuming the team manages to fix things up, it’s definitely a good time to be a fan of old-schoolStar Warsstuff. Alongside continued support for both originalBattlefrontgames, strategy gemStar Wars: Empire at Warreceived its own 2021 update last month with new maps and various bug fixes. Last year, meanwhile, Varese Sarabande Records released thesoundtrack to the cult classicStar Wars: Shadows of the Empireon vinyl, offering a taste of retro goodness toStar Warsaudiophiles.
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