Star Wars Battlefront 2 forced to fundamentally change how game works just hours before launch date

Star Wars Battlefront 2, one of the biggest games of the year from perhaps the biggest franchise in the world, has received drastic changes in just its last moments.

The run-up to the release of the game has been hindered by repeated complaints that it is fundamentally unfair. And that criticism focused on micro-transactions, which allowed people to pay sometimes substantial amounts of money to get access to new characters, weapons and other upgrades in the game.

Many games include those purchases, and while they have proven controversial they are usually not enough to derail the game. Battlefront 2 received sustained criticism because the in-game purchases were so expensive, and gave people such a clear advantage over people who hadn't paid for them.

What's more, many of the series' most iconic characters – such as Darth Vader – couldn't be unlocked without either playing the game for a huge number of hours or handing over a substantial amount of money to get them unlocked.

Fans argued that they were being locked out of the features promised by the game, and that the micro-transactions were bringing about a "pay-to-win" situation where people would have to pay up if they wanted to actually do well in the game.

The anger over the issue led to abuse directed at EA Games and a comment from the developer that became by some distance Reddit's least popular ever to be posted.

Now, the huge amount of criticism has led to EA to completely change the way the game works, just hours before it was released. It will now completely drop the in-game purchases that proved so controversial, it has said.

"Our goal has always been to create the best possible game for all of you – devoted Star Wars fans and game players alike. We’ve also had an ongoing commitment to constantly listen, tune and evolve the experience as it grows," a blogpost from Oskar Gabrielson, general manager at EA game developer DICE, read. "You’ve seen this with both the major adjustments, and polish, we have made over the past several weeks.

"But as we approach the worldwide launch, it’s clear that many of you feel there are still challenges in the design. We’ve heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages. And we’ve heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our intention. Sorry we didn’t get this right.

"We hear you loud and clear, so we’re turning off all in-game purchases. We will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning. This means that the option to purchase crystals in the game is now offline, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. We’ll share more details as we work through this."