EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (that’s the new one, not the old one) is having a great time right now, as a big surge of players has resulted in it getting its highest player count since 2021. That’s not bad for a game that hasn’t been updated in 5 years.
Over on Steam, the game has been seeing a steady increase in players since earlier this month. For quite a few years now, the game has typically seen a maximum concurrent player count of a few thousand on Steam, occasionally venturing up to 4,000 or so. But in the last 24 hours, it has hit a concurrent player count of 9,777. That’s not far off of its best of 10,489 concurrent players, which it achieved back in 2021. Considering it has been steadily rising all month, there’s a chance that it might actually beat that over the weekend.
So what’s up with the random flood of players? Well, it’s a mixture of things. Andor just began its second season at the tail end of April, and while the rest of the Star Wars universe media has been rather…er, mixed, Andor’s first season was almost universally loved. Season 2 seems to be heading the same way.
Meanwhile, there’s been a big step-up of people on social media encouraging people to get back into Battlefront 2. Since you can pick up the game these days on sale regularly for £5-10, that’s not a huge ask, and it seems people have responded.
Of course, we don’t really know what sort of console numbers the game is bringing in right now. All I can say with certainty is that Battlefront 2 has risen up the sales rankings on both PlayStation and Xbox.
I’ve heard from a reliable source that Star Wars Battlefront II spiked to over 100,000 concurrent players after May 4th, and it’s still holding strong at 80–90k!
That means millions are playing every week — Incredible for a game that hasn’t had an update in 5 years. pic.twitter.com/1JEQyz3dA6
— BattlefrontUpdates (@SWBFUpdates) May 20, 2025
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On the more speculative side, BattlefrontUpdates on X says that a reliable source has told them that the game spiked at over 100,000 concurrent players across all platforms on May 4, and since then has been consistently managing 80-90k. Other people have claimed even higher concurrent counts.
Fans over on Reddit are looking to try to use this momentum to get a new Star Wars: Battlefront made. While it seems unlikely it will happen, who knows? Sometimes enough fan momentum can get a project off the ground.
Battlefront 2 struggled to really make an impact, despite people being initially very excited to play the game. It launched in 2017 and proved instantly divisive among fans. Chief complaints were the loot-boxes and annoying microtransactions in a full-priced game, and long-time fans of the classic Battlefront games were annoyed at how slim the content felt compared to the older games. At the time, people calculated that it would take around 40 hours of playing to unlock a single hero without paying extra. Meanwhile, those that did pull out their wallet were gaining major gameplay advantages over those that didn’t.
As for me, I’m downloading my copy of the game again on PlayStation. Hand me a lightsabre, ‘cos some bitches need to learn about the Force by force.