It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that EA’s Star Wars Battlefront will feature both a season pass and an ultimate edition, but the price point of these products does come as a bit of a shocker. The Battlefront Season Pass will cost $50 USD and the Ultimate Edition, which is just Battlefront Deluxe bundled with the Battlefront Season Pass, will cost $120 USD. The season pass will include “4 upcoming expansion packs filled with new content, two-week early access to each expansion and an exclusive “Shoot First” emote.”
I’m sure that EA has listed the Battlefront Season Pass right at the end of the Battlefront beta so that more consumers will purchase it immediately, without even knowing what they’re in for. The fact that the biggest feature of the Battlefront season pass will likely be map additions is unfortunate for many people. Anyone who purchases the base Battlefront game will be locked away in their own servers, isolated from those who have access to more planets and maps. Of course, we don’t actually know what other content apart from maps could be locked behind the pass yet, but considering the fact that Battlefront is multiplayer only, no other option seems plausible.
It seems that EA has decided to follow suit with what other multiplayer only games have done in the past. Evolve and Titanfall, for example, both offered season passes which added characters and map packs, respectively. Both season passes, however, retailed for $25, and neither one seems to have had a lasting impression. The Titanfall pass is now free and Evolve plus its bonus content has decreased in price rapidly since a fairly unimpressive launch. This evidence marks a risky path.
It is unsettling to see that EA has decided to go this route. The existence of a season pass was undoubtable, but the price point and description are incredibly worrisome. Extra maps that should have been included in the base game? An “emote”? “Two-week early access”? Are any of these features worth the investment? That’ll be up to you to decide.
Star Wars Battlefront releases November 17, 2015, and retails for $60. The deluxe edition retails for $70, the season pass for $50, and the ultimate edition for $120. Stay tuned to ICXM for upcoming information on all your Battefront related news.
Tristan was a regular ICXM contributor between 2015–2017, publishing 51 articles across opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @tbogost.