As games have shifted more and more toward online functionality there has been an interesting phenomenon of some games still utilizing player to player connections. These can work, though usually not in a fast paced or competitive environment. This can be especially bad when there are a lot of players, as the P2P connection will give one player host advantage and cause other sorts of issues. So, with Star Wars Battlefront 2 being a large and competitive game it’s good to hear from one of the developers that it will use dedicated servers.
Dennis Brännvall, Associate Design Director at DICE for Star Wars Battlefront 2 chimed into a discussion about the game, saying “we will have dedicated servers, like always.” A definitive statement, and one that isn’t too shocking for those who’ve followed the series and developer for some time.
DICE seems to understand the importance of dedicated servers, though they won’t go so far as to allow players to host their own, which has been expected from many games. With 40 players all on a massive map, having P2P connections would have been unwieldy and would essentially destroy the game. Dedicated servers were kind of expected, especially with the last game using them, along with other DICE titles such as Battlefield.
Still, it’s always good to get these sorts of assurances before possibly putting your money down on the game. P2P just causes so many issues, such as the aforementioned host advantage, where one player has 0 latency in their connection while everyone else has varying degrees of it. There’s also a lot of ways to tamper with the connection when you’re set as host, such as timing it out, allowing you to move freely while everyone else is lagging.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 will have none of these problems though, thankfully. Check it out for yourself when it hits PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 11th.
