It’s rare that the removal of a feature from a video game makes fans of that game happy, but fans of Star Wars Battlefront seem pretty happy that, thanks to a new update, anyone playing as a Stormtrooper in the game is forced to keep their helmet on.
“No more wretched storm troopers without helmets,” one player noted on the game’s official forums on Tuesday.
“No more helmetless Stormtroopers!!!” wrote another. “YES!!! This is something they definitely got right for sure. A long time coming this was.”
The title of the most popular thread on the game’s subreddit this week is: “Helmet-less Stormtroopers are gone.” It has a 90% upvote rating and many happy people posting in it.
The ability to play as a helmet-less stormtrooper was officially dropped from Battlefront earlier this week as part of a patch coinciding with the release of the game’s new Death Star expansion. It’s been removed from the impressively diverse character customizations options in the game, which let players choose the gender, ethnicity, age and wardrobe of their in-game character. Players can still use helmetless heads for other character builds in the game. One of the new patch’s change-notes reads: “Appearance: With the arrival of the Imperial Officers, the certification for Stormtroopers to remove their helmets in combat has been withdrawn.”
Battlefront is a game in which players can make Princess Leia shoot Darth Vader or have a rebel trooper teabag Luke Skywalker....
But, as the developers put it, those in the Battlefront community who felt like there was something wrong with stormtroopers running around without helmets on had a point.
“We agree that it’s important that you feel part of the Star Wars universe and that it feels authentic,” the game’s lead designer, Dennis Brännvall, said during a recent livestream. “That’s why we listened to feedback and said, ‘Let’s go back to having helmets on.’” He said that fans had complained that, if you played as a helmet-less Stormtrooper “it didn’t feel like they were part of the Stormtrooper army anymore.”
Brännvall said he’s weighed complaints about guards from Bespin showing up on Hoth or about Rebels being able to arm themselves with Imperial weapons and that, for him, everything in the game should feel authentic to Star Wars but then be used however the player would like to use it. He acknowledged that “there are as many interpretations of what’s true to Star Wars as there Star Wars fans.” So much for the helmetless Stormtrooper concept, though.
Who knew that letting Stormtroopers go into battle unmasked would be so transgressive?