Star Wars Battlefront 2: Inferno Squad Review

With Star Wars Battlefront 2 due out on consoles in November, a tie-in novel called “Inferno Squad” was released, giving us fans more backstory into the new team, which will be the primary focus of the single player campaign for the game.  The Inferno Squad consists of four members, with Iden Versio being the leader of the group and will be the main character that is playable in the upcoming video game.

While this book is a prequel to the video game, you don’t have to be interested in the game to enjoy this book.  The story is solid and offers a very different take on the Empire.  The whole story is told from their point of view, how the rebels are terrorists and having the team go undercover to get rid of them is very interesting.    Seeing how the team comes together throughout the different missions and the development of their characters.   I really liked how the team tried to squeeze out the Empire’s traitors and how they did it.

The story also ties in very nicely with the events of Rogue One and a New Hope, how the effects of what happens in those movies impacts the Empire and its loyal members.    It And its a refreshing take on the Empire and humanises it, seeming more like being part of the armed services for a government, combating the terrorists and the effects being undercover can have on agents.   It also helps that the Inferno Squad are taking on Partisans, who are known as the “Dreamers”, who are inspired by Saw Gerrera, who use tactics that even the Rebels won’t use, such as blowing up schools.  This makes the Empire much easier to side with and thus makes the team much more appealing.

There are some major issues with the story that did leave me feeling a little baffled, especially with the team eventually just taking out the “Dreamers”, which they could have done much earlier in the book and it wouldn’t have made much difference to the outcome.  The earlier part of the story, with the team going on a few small missions, seemed a much more simple way of building these characters backstory out and much more enjoyable.  Once the team infiltrated the Dreamers, the pace just dropped to a snails pace.

Inferno Squad sits very much in the average category, it isn’t a must read by any means, but for a tie-in novel, this is very good, but there isn’t a huge amount of action in the book, especially one with “Battle” in the title, and with the main story being based around a action packed video game, does make it feel a little slow, but in some ways, this book uses its medium to give that backstory on the characters, something games often struggle with.

I enjoyed reading this novel, its a interesting take on the people within the Empire and ties in nicely with the events of Rogue One and sets the tone for the upcoming story mode in Star Wars Battlefront 2.  But it still stands on its own merits as an interesting read that has made me much more excited about the story in the new game, which is the true purpose of the book.

What did you think of Inferno Squad?