Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection ‘A Terrible Gut Punch’, Veteran Modder Says
With Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection’s disastrous launch resulting in a backlash from players, particularly on Steam, modders have already set out to fix the game.
Battlefront Classic Collection was meant to be a nostalgia-fuelled return to Star Wars multiplayer of old, but instead was beset by matchmaking errors, crashes, and servers not appearing in the browser.
For one modder in particular, Battlefront Classic Collection hurt even more because it appeared to include their own work uncredited — before developer Aspyr patched the game.
Last month, IGN reported on veteran Battlefront modder iamashaymin, who was surprised to discover the Battlefront Classic Collection’s debut trailer suggested their mod for the original Battlefront 2 had been used for this updated release. Aspyr issued IGN a statement in response insisting the game “does not include any code or content that is taken from uncredited sources”, adding it had “mistakenly” included “content that is not in the product” after capturing placeholder footage for the trailer last fall.
But eagle-eyed players discovered evidence to the contrary, at least in the release version of the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection before it received a last-minute patch. Footage taken from the PlayStation 5 version of Battlefront Classic Collection and published to reddit showed the version of Asajj Ventress from iamashaymin’s mod without credit. Players have reported the latest patch replaces this version of the character with an Aspyr-created version. IGN has asked Aspyr for comment.
‘The upcoming release of Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection does not include any code or content that is taken from uncredited sources.’https://t.co/GjrJY2E0wM
I am not in the Credits @AspyrMedia
— iamashaymin (@iamashaymin) March 14, 2024
A disgruntled iamashaymin told IGN they were hugely disappointed by Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection. “This release has been a total mess. The fact they had to release patches both before and immediately after releasing two decade old games really says it all,” they said. “Especially considering part of the patches is rumoured to have removed content they had already said was removed months ago.
“There’s not really anything else I can say that other players aren’t already screaming, it’s a terrible feeling getting very pumped for a game like this and it just missing the mark entirely. It’s a terrible gut punch.”
Now, the Battlefront modding community is working to fix the game, compiling a growing list of issues that will be targeted over the coming days. “The modding community was already at the ready the moment they announced the game,” iamashaymin said.
“We were hoping for improvements we could take advantage of to make better and of course would be ready to port and redevelop our modded content to work with the new games. A lot of players in general were hoping for general bug fixes anyway, such as a very famous issue where on Death Star, one of the team’s reinforcements ticket count would deplete at twice the rate and voicelines that wouldn’t ever play due to a simple typo.
“What we found on release was a very broken game, with a lot of issues we have fixed in the past. As well as any mod support for both games being quite badly damaged although just barely functional for Battlefront 2. (All mods for Battlefront 1 are broken now.)”
Iamashaymin outlined the sheer volume of problems the modders hope to tackle, including multiple issues with the HUD and user interface. “We also noticed a lot of visual problems as well, decompiling the files has only shown us even worse horrors,” they added. Iamashaymin says the Collection appears to have broken the original games’ lighting model on most maps, which in one case results in a black void.
Elsewhere, there is missing or invisible geometry. “There’s loads of these weird issues that are just screaming rushed development,” Iamashaymin said. “Some textures in the game are even muddled with those from Battlefront 1, like Kashyyyk’s water is blue like in Battlefront 1 and not gray like in Battlefront 2 and the DLC maps themselves use completely the wrong textures in a lot of places,” Iamashaymin explained.
“These are all things we can fix or just wouldn’t have broken to start with. Every few hours there’s something new we need to look into and add to a list of planned fixes.
“And this is not even beginning to touch content and features from other released versions of these games from 20 years ago not present, like four-screen splitscreen, AI controlled heroes from Xbox and the PSP Challenges that us modders have the files for and intend to recreate properly within this release.
There’s loads of these weird issues that are just screaming rushed development.
“All of these and quite a lot more, are relatively easy fixes when you understand what you’re doing. I’d imagine Aspyr could patch a lot of these quickly but we have the resources and ability to do it ourselves and produce probably better results. This is what two decades of shared experience with these titles gives us.”
Overnight, Aspry issued a statement addressing the botched launch, saying it had experienced “critical errors” with its network infrastructure. This resulted in “incredibly high” ping, matchmaking errors, crashes, and servers not appearing in the browser.
Aspry added that it is working to address the problems and increase network stability. As for everything else wrong with Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, modders are on the case.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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