Highlights
- The binary distinction between 'heroes' and 'villains' in Star Wars Battlefront fails to accurately represent the complexity of many characters, such as Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren.
- The game mode 'Heroes vs. Villains' lacks moral ambiguity and nuance, as it categorizes characters without considering their struggles and development.
- Changing the title of the game mode in a potential Star Wars Battlefront 3 could allow for more nuanced portrayal of characters and better representation of their development.
The most elementary Star Wars fans could discern that the Jedi are intended to be ‘good’ while the Sith are intended to be ‘bad’. The ‘light’ and ‘dark’ sides of the Force are also used as symbols to depict this balance, with light side endeavors meaning one is benevolent while dark side endeavors mean one is malicious. This is argued throughout Star Wars and helps fans identify characters based on where they are aligned in this balance, but it fails to accommodate for more nuanced characters and especially characters who are not attuned to the Force, even in Star Wars Battlefront.
Star Wars Battlefront is a celebration of Star Wars’ epic science-fiction fantasy wrapped in multiplayer shooter trappings, and as such it was never intended to shatter molds or disrupt any immersion fans would have wanted from it. Battlefront was not going to be an opportunity for the franchise to necessarily branch out, but rather to accurately honor what came before it. Battlefront 2’s narrative put a nice wrench in that by offering a story mode introducing a new character, but Iden Versio only played further into the moral ambiguity that the franchise’s supposed ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ punctuate.
Battlefront’s ‘Heroes vs. Villains’ Title Lacks Moral Ambiguity and Nuance
Star Wars Battlefront’s Heroes vs. Villains mode was divisive depending on whether certain characters were bugged, nerfed, or overpowered, especially in the latest entry. But aside from how gameplay was oriented for it, it is interesting taking a look at which characters were included on either side. The line between which characters are considered ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people is commonly unambiguous in Star Wars, but that binary distinction is not an accurate representation of many others.
Luke Skywalker is certainly a ‘hero’ type in the original trilogy, for example, but Luke nearly murdering Ben Solo strikes an off-putting chord that ripples through his character until his final appearance. Further, Kylo Ren is undoubtedly an antagonist in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but throughout the sequel trilogy his circumstances and tribulations are more complicated than him simply being a villain archetype.
Painting him as a villain doesn’t account for his moments of struggle, and it surely doesn’t account for him shirking his anger and helping Rey at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. Then there are characters who do not have a predilection toward the Force for fans to judge them against—Lando Calrissian may not be as hard-cut of a villain as Emperor Palpatine, for example, but calling him a ‘hero’ based on his newfound conscience in The Empire Strikes Back seems indulgent until his truly heroic exploits in Return of the Jedi earn him that distinction.
To be fair, Star Wars itself has painted these characters the way they are, and it is made clear how one-sided some characters can be in earlier entries. Some fans may not even mind this distinction and feel that the labels of hero or villain are earned after all, even if there are grey areas for each. It helps Star Wars Battlefront nonetheless to make characters less robust because it simply needs a way to funnel them into opposing teams, but even Iden Versio’s character development is diminished in multiplayer gameplay since she remains on the villains’ side.
If a Star Wars Battlefront 3 changed the title of its Heroes vs. Villains game mode, then that would at least offer a bit more nuance in how characters are portrayed and empathized with in-game, even if they still needed to adhere to the Rebellion or the Empire as opposing teams. Otherwise, the back-and-forth development of these legacy characters is not represented authentically and pigeonholes them to being a static interpretation for the sake of multiplayer gameplay in Star Wars Battlefront.