Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection,^[2] also formatted as Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection,^[4] is a video game released Aspyr that combines the classic Star Wars Battlefront games^[2]—the 2004 Star Wars: Battlefront and its 2005 sequel Star Wars: Battlefront II—originally developed by LucasArts and Pandemic Studios.^[5]

The Classic Collection features content inspired by the original and prequel trilogies and includes restored online play for up to 64 players, expansions to Hero Assault mode, and all previously released bonus content for both titles. First announced on February 21, 2024, simultaneously through Nintendo Direct,^[4], the Aspyr YouTube channel,^[6] and StarWars.com, the game was released on March 14, 2024 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.^[2] The collection includes brand new trophies and achievements for PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam.^[7]

Reception[]

Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection launched on March 14, 2024,^[2] and was not well received by players,^[8][9][10] with IGN calling it a "disaster".^[8] The game was plagued at release with numerous issues, such as too few servers —themselves unreliable—, major bugs, controls problems,^[8][9][10] and even missing cut scenes.^[10] It was also reported that the game space requirement was too large, reaching 62.87GB at launch, compared to the combined 12.39GB of the original games.^[9] Aspyr communicated on March 15 that they had problems with their network infrastructure,^[11] and later published a first patch on March 19.^[12]

Controversies[]

After the release of the announcement trailer on February 21, 2024,^[2] people familiar with^[14] the "Star Wars Battlefront 2 – Xbox DLC Content for PC" mod^[15] noticed that^[14] the Nintendo Direct trailer^[4] was displaying assets that presented similarities with assets from the mod. As told to IGN by the mod creator, iamashaymin, the 2021 mod was a PC porting of an exclusive DLC for the original Star Wars: Battlefront on Xbox, and the exclusive heroes from the DLC—Asajj Ventress and Kit Fisto— had to be recreated for PC using preexisting assets from the original game; Aayla Secura and Ki-Adi-Mundi's 3D models and animation, respectively. In particular, the mod depiction of Asajj Ventress was dissimilar with the DLC, as she is wielding a one-handed Nunchaku-like linksabers in the later, while she instead uses a lightsaber in each hand in the former, in the same fashion as Aayla Secura, the base model for Ventress in the mod. The 3d models of the lightsaber were also different between the mod and the DLC.^[14]

As those distinguishable elements from the mod appeared in the Nintendo Direct trailer, it became apparent that Aspyr included the mod within the collection instead of porting the DLC to PC themselves. Furthermore, iamashaymin noted that Aspyr used an outdated version of the mod,^[14] as it was updated earlier in the month, on February 6, to remove discrepancies between the DLC and the mod depiction of Ventress.^[16] Aspyr admitted to IGN that when capturing footage for the trailer in fall 2023, it included content that is not intended for the final product and that it should not have been included in the final cut of the trailer, and added that the final product will "not include any code or content that is taken from uncredited sources".^[14]

However, when the game released on March 14, players and modders noticed that some version of the collection,^[13][17] such as the PlayStation 5 version,^[17] and the Switch version,^[13] were still featuring elements from iamashaymin's mod.^[13][17] In the case of the Switch, datamining of the game files showed that the weapons data file, Kit Fisto's force bubble projectile and the player models for Kit Fisto and Asajj Ventress where the exact same as the mod, but the animation where not affected,^[13] while the PlayStation version was still using Ventress' animations from the mod (Secura's animations).^[17] Those version were quickly patched by Aspyr to remove the contentious files from the collection.^[13][17]

Sources[]

• Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection Available Now – Updated on StarWars.com (backup link)
• STAR WARS: Battlefront Classic Edition – Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase 2.21.24 on the Nintendo of America YouTube channel (backup link)
• STAR WARS™: Battlefront Classic Collection – Announce Trailer on the Aspyr Media YouTube channel (backup link)
• STAR WARS™ Battlefront Classic Collection – Launch Trailer on the Aspyr Media YouTube channel (backup link)

Notes and references[]

External links[]

• STAR WARS™: Battlefront Classic Collection on Nintendo Official Site (archived from the original on February 22, 2024)
• STAR WARS™ Battlefront Classic Collection on PlayStation Store (archived from the original on February 21, 2024)
• STAR WARS™: Battlefront Classic Collection on Steam (archived from the original on February 22, 2024)
• STAR WARS™: Battlefront Classic Collection on Xbox Official Site (archived from the original on February 22, 2024)
• Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection on the Star Wars Battlefront Wiki
• Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection PS4 & PS5 features revealed on PlayStation.Blog (archived from the original on February 21, 2024)

Star Wars Battlefront series
LucasArts Star Wars: Battlefront (Mobile) · Star Wars: Battlefront II Renegade Squadron · Mobile Squadrons · Elite Squadron Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection Cancelled titles Star Wars: Battlefront III · Star Wars: Battlefront IV Electronic Arts Star Wars Battlefront · Star Wars Battlefront II Soundtracks Battlefront · Battlefront II Tie-in fiction "Inbrief" · Battlefront: Twilight Company (audiobook) · Battlefront II: Inferno Squad (audiobook) Game Guides Star Wars Battlefront: Prima Official Game Guide Star Wars Battlefront II: Prima Official Game Guide Star Wars Battlefront Companion Star Wars Battlefront Strategy Guide
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