This week, Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (the 2005 Pandemic one, not EA's successor) received its first update in years. But when the small patch broke just about everything, the update was rolled back after less than a day.
Still chugging along 16 years after release, yesterday's hotfix was ostensibly a compatibility update, adding official controller support and improving UI scaling on modern resolutions. But a quick trawl of the game's Steam Discussions shows that the update broke a hell of a lot more that it fixed.
Problems included resolution scaling issues, key binds resetting at will, certain gamepads not working, various inputs not firing, animation glitches, and broader problems with the game's strategy-lite "Galactic Conquest" mode. On Reddit, one user noticed that hitting Print Screen would crash the game. Naturally, the hotfix also broke many of the mods that had been developed over the years.
So, earlier today, the hotfix was rolled back, with a small community post simply stating the game had "reverted to an earlier version". A representative for GOG told Eurogamer that the update had been provided to it by Lucasfilm Games, Disney's new Star Wars videogame caretaker, but that it promptly took it down after "reviewing the user feedback and consulting with our partner".
That it was reverted at all is a relief. Battlefront 2 might be getting on a bit, but the multiplayer shooter is still both a fascinating time capsule and nostalgia trip. It'd be a shame to see that ruined by one little hotfix.
