Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection: Did Aspyr Use A Mod Without Consent?

Star Wars Battlefront: Classic Collection is facing a new controversy over the weekend after its launch.

While many fans were looking forward to this revival, Aspyr Media disappointed fans with the limited online capability. Advertising promised a rise in lobbies from 32 to 64 players. As it turned out, the PC version of the game, where most players were expected to be on, only had 3 servers ready at launch.

Aspyr shared a message blaming the issues on “critical errors with our network infrastructure”. But the new controversy we are reporting on now can’t be conveniently explained away.

As reported by Video Games Chronicle, a modder has come forward claiming that Aspyr put his mod into their Star Wars Battlefront: Classic Collection, without their permission, getting credited, or getting paid for it.

Iamashaymin shared a clip of the game on Twitter last March 14, which showed evidence that their mod was in video footage in Aspyr’s launch trailer. They also shared this caption:

“’The upcoming release of Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection does not include any code or content that is taken from uncredited sources.’

I am not in the Credits @AspyrMedia”

In a follow up tweet on the same day, iamashaymin said this:

“So to clarify. *Apparently the PlayStation 5 version shipped with my Asajj Ventress mod still in use, it should be noted I am not credited on this version or any version of the Classic Collection.

Yes, this does mean @AspyrMedia did just straight lie to @IGN  and @wyp100”

Video Games Chronicle’s report, dated March 17, claims that Aspyr has already removed these animations, but iamashaymin is not done. On tweets sent on the same day, they said this:

“Seriously, @AspyrMedia I’m beginning to feel insulted. Nintendo Switch launched with just straight up all my hero stuff from my mod. Same glitches and bugs. We’ve datamined it and it’s the exact same files just using the proper lightsaber attack anims.

(This is before patch)”

We may also learn later that the Xbox version of the game has evidence of this mod, simply because Aspyr used the same build.

Overall, Aspyr has a lot to explain here, and they have yet to issue a statement. It is certainly a shame as these are popular games that fans would have loved to play again. If these ports were handled by more well regarded studios like NightDive, we may not even have these controversies at the moment.

In any case, we hope Aspyr owes up to whatever mistakes they made here and does right by iamashaymin.