A shock resurgence of curiosity within the 2017 sport Star Wars Battlefront II ought to have developer DICE and writer EA taking a well-deserved victory lap. However whereas the builders at DICE are hopefully feeling a way of pleasure on the love and curiosity within the 8-year-old sport—does its sudden success solid a shadow on EA’s enterprise technique?
The query is related as a result of on June 22, 2025 the sport clocked a report variety of concurrent customers on Steam, topping out at 35,000 concurrent customers logging on to the 8-year-old sport, 3 times larger than the earlier peak of 10,000 gamers in January of 2021.
The shock surge wasn’t an in a single day phenomenon. For nearly a decade, a gentle stream of Battlefront 2 gamers have nurtured a wholesome curiosity within the sport, preserving it buzzing at round 2,000 to three,000 CCU on Steam. Content material creators like Bombastic and TheStarBazaar performed a key function right here, and when a brand new batch of gamers picked up the sport for $5 on a Could 4th Star Wars sale, they and different group teams like Kyber had been able to greet them.
“There’s all the time a little bit of renewed curiosity in Star Wars round Could the Fourth, however I feel this yr’s Fortnite Star Wars occasion being a full Season and takeover made individuals understand they nonetheless have a longing for a multiplayer Star Wars shooter,” noticed Bombastic (actual title Andrew Shelley). “Fortnite does not fairly scratch that itch.”
What actually sparked curiosity, in response to Shelley, was the community-led push for what turned often called “Resurgence Day,” a bid to publicly marketing campaign for the making of a hypothetical Star Wars Battlefront 3. Curiosity within the Disney+ Star Wars present Andor—and a public endorsement of Resurgence Day by solid member Muhannad Bhaier—doubtless additionally performed a task, however the homespun participant group was the Rhydonium that exploded when all of the friction hit the air.
Could 24 got here and went with about 18,000 gamers logging in on Steam. Gamers caught round, ultimately resulting in the June 22 peak. Extra content material creators are flocking to the sport, new guides are going up and but—what has EA mentioned concerning the surge?
Nothing. The EA Star Wars and DICE social media accounts are silent. Choose via the previous and you will find promotions for the Could 4th sale and posts selling updates for the free-to-play cell sport Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes in addition to the upcoming Star Wars: Zero Firm. Search the latter, and you will find a mixture of 2042 clips from Battlefield 2042 and chatter concerning the upcoming sport.
A years-after-launch burst of participant enthusiasm could be a win for nearly any sport developer. However for EA it is sadly one other worrying signal of flaws in its enterprise mannequin—one which’s pushed report layoffs throughout its sport studios and could also be driving the developer to an costly catastrophe.
New Battlefront II content material is not doubtless
EA has been caught flat-footed on Battlefront II for a similar purpose its variety of profitable collection and studios has been shrinking for the final decade: its top-down administration fashion places builders in rigid circumstances the place they can not reply to trade change and participant enthusiasm.
That technique has put DICE in an unenviable place. It will possibly’t swing into motion in response to Battlefront II‘s reputation as a result of it’s heads-down on the subsequent Battlefield sport, working with various different EA subsidiaries to relaunch the collection as a dwell service powerhouse (Ars Technica has reported that mentioned undertaking goes via a rocky patch in improvement). If everybody’s heads down on Battlefield, there isn’t any one to double again on Battlefront.
Making new content material would even be technically tough as a result of it ended improvement 5 years in the past. Not solely would the tooling be outdated, however there could also be severe tech debt and flaws in delivery on trendy consoles. Making new Star Wars content material additionally may require EA to renegotiate its license with copyright holder Disney. That does not appear doubtless, provided that CEO Andrew Wilson has repeatedly acknowledged the corporate is transferring away from licensed video games.
Picture by way of EA/DICE.
That simply leaves the query of a hypothetical sequel. GameDiscoverCo founder (and former Sport Developer writer) Simon Carless does not suppose this participant surge is sufficient to sway EA on making one other Star Wars Battlefront sport. Primarily based on his firm’s information, he estimated that the sport has earned “about $5 million” in gross income since Could 1st, out of a complete of “round $32 million” for its whole lifetime on Steam (Battlefront II solely launched on Steam in 2020. It had beforehand been obtainable on EA’s Origin app).
“Whereas it is true that its concurrent customers are actually large, it is all by way of one-off purchases,” mentioned Carless. “We would think about that EA sees this nearly as good catalogue income, however could or could not see it as a purpose to make a brand new sport within the collection.” A brand new sport would doubtless price at the very least $60, and gamers who purchased Battlefront II for just a few {dollars} may blink at an costly successor.
These are the realities of sport improvement in 2025. However because of reporting and statements from former builders, we are able to see how EA didn’t adapt to the shifting setting of on-line video games, all as a result of it was laser-focused on monetary progress in any respect price.
Battlefront II’s monetization scheme was initially a catastrophe
That laser concentrate on profits-at-all-costs was on show when Battlefront II first launched in 2017. The $60 sport’s loot field monetization system was so unpopular that EA slashed costs by 75 p.c. Shortly afterward, then-Hawaii state legislature consultant Chris Lee referred to as for laws banning loot packing containers, referring to Battlefront II as a “Star Wars-themed on-line on line casino.” Even if you happen to do not subscribe to the idea that loot packing containers are a type of playing, it is truthful to say charging further money (or demanding 40 hours of in-game playtime) to unlock characters from the movies was a stretch.
Having to change Battlefront II‘s monetization mannequin would have impacted EA’s projected income for the sport, doubtlessly decreasing the corporate’s enthusiasm for not solely the sport, however the Star Wars license as a complete.
The fiasco had been a long-distant reminiscence by the point DICE and EA ended post-launch content material improvement in 2020. Ending improvement whereas preserving the sport’s official servers on-line match DICE’s decades-long enterprise technique. Since 2011’s Battlefield 3, the collection has been offered as a premium product with about two years of post-launch content material help that might increase post-launch gross sales. DICE additionally employed this mannequin for Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront II.
This left EA weak to disruption by firms who might ship an identical high quality degree with out growing costly sequels. The identical yr that Battlefront provoked legislative furor, Bluehole launched Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (at the moment often called PUBG Battlegrounds), upending the monetary mannequin for dwell service video games. Bluehole had loads of expertise making massively multiplayer on-line role-playing video games, which are not designed round an inevitable sunsetting to tee up a bigger-budget sequel.
The issue is obvious: for the final decade EA has choked out alternatives for flexibility and shock hits. Reporting on EA—from its mandate that BioWare to transform its in-development Dragon Age sequel into an internet multiplayer sport, to Anthem‘s troubled improvement cycle, to the subsequent Battlefield sport has proven a repeating sample: EA tasking groups not skilled in particular genres with making blockbuster do-or-die video games with little plan for long-term help.
This downside is made apparent by the studios not compelled solely into these meat grinders. EA Motive turned out Star Wars Squadrons and the remake of Useless Area with simply three years between them whereas additionally juggling help on initiatives like the subsequent Battlefield single-player marketing campaign. (And Battlefront II‘s single-player marketing campaign!) Its in-development Iron Man Sport appears protected for the second, however CEO Andrew Wilson’s repeated insistence that the corporate is transferring away from licensed video games (and the corporate’s cancelling of a Black Panther sport and shutting down developer Cliffhanger Video games) place an ever-increasing quantity of stress on that sport to do nicely.
BioWare Austin saved Star Wars: The Outdated Republic buzzing alongside (even when it by no means hitting the highs of different MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or Closing Fantasy XIV), constructing a deep data base for dwell companies and on-line video games the studio might have tapped into. But then EA moved improvement of that sport to exterior studio Broadsword.
In the meantime, Wilson lately famous Apex Legend’s income is “declining“, whereas PUBG Battlegrounds and Fortnite proceed to hum alongside. “We do consider there shall be a time the place we have to do a extra significant replace of Apex as a broad sport expertise,” he mentioned—however solely saying that may happen after the launch of the subsequent Battlefield sport. That “replace” shall be tougher to make given what number of builders at Respawn Leisure the corporate’s laid off this yr.
EA’s whole enterprise mannequin has calcified—purely pursuing new large finances megahits in an period the place yesterday’s large finances megahits are nonetheless topping the charts. For some other firm, tens of hundreds of gamers spontaneously bursting into your 8-year-old sport would ship builders and group managers into motion to do one thing—something—to have a good time their enthusiasm.
However at EA, it appears if it does not drive progress, it isn’t price even a single submit on social media.
