2017’s Star Wars Battlefront II from Battlefield developer DICE is popular again, with player numbers jumping on Steam to near record-levels. This is happening amidst a fan campaign for EA to make another entry in the popular, multimillion-selling franchise.
The game reached 9,292 concurrent players on Steam in the past 24 hours, which is just shy of its all-time peak concurrent record of 10,489, according to data from SteamDB. The game was hovering between 1,500 and 3,000 peak concurrent players until mid-April 2025, when player numbers began surging for the eight-year-old game.
This was around the time that the Star Wars TV series Andor came back for its second and final season on Disney+.
Exactly why the game is experiencing a big uptick is unknown, but it comes amid a campaign for a third game in the new series. Recently, actor Muhannad Ben Amor from Andor posted on his Instagram story, “Star Wars gotta give us Battlefront 3 ASAP.”
The Battlefront subreddit is experiencing lots of activity and engagement lately, with fans discussing how much they’re enjoying returning to the game. Battlefront II is included with EA Play, so that means Game Pass Ultimate subscribers also get it as part of their membership.
2015’s Battlefront and 2017’s Battlefront II combined to sell more than 33 million copies, but despite that, EA has not confirmed any plans for more entries in the series. It was reported in 2024 that EA rejected a pitch from DICE for Battlefront III due to the licensing costs it would have to pay Disney. The report said a potential Battlefront III would need to sell 20% more copies to justify its production budget.
DICE is currently working on Battlefield 6, so no one should expect the developer to make a third Battlefront game soon, if it ever does.
The Battlefront series debuted in 2004 with a third-person shooter from the since-shuttered Pandemic Studios. A sequel, Battlefront II, came out in 2005, and it was also developed by Pandemic. A third game was reportedly in the works, but it was said to be canceled “two yards from the finish line.”
The two older games were packaged together in the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, which was released in 2024 to a terrible critical reception due to numerous bugs and other issues.
