2017 gaming awards – App Trigger superlatives edition

EA Award For Bad DLC – Star Wars: Battlefront II

Oddly enough, the annual award for notably awful DLC and microtransactions hasn’t ever been awarded to an EA studios game before Star Wars Battlefront II. Yes, the free DLC path EA sought out to bring to their player base involved offsetting losses through loot crates, although the payment and grinding requirements to unlock a fair bit of multiplayer content were extreme before launch.

60,000 credits to unlock one hero ticked off reviewers and the pay-to-win-light elements of its crafting system that would require hundreds of hours to unlock without money sparked a monumentally awful backlash campaign from Star Wars fans. It got so big that newspapers of record and international press got wind of it, and certain people from Disney made calls over to higher-ups at EA.

Not only did EA fundamentally re-destroy the trust they’ve built into creating this series of games, but they’ve post-facto cast a dark cloud of doubt towards all future non-sports titles, especially Anthem. Furthermore, with their decision to shut down Visceral Games for making a single-player linear adventure game (and not a DLC/microtransaction-fest), the future of their Star Wars games license looks murky at best.

Runners-up: Destiny 2, Need for Speed: Payback