Although the game is almost eight years old, Star Wars Battlefront II is still reaching a massive audience of dedicated Star Wars fans.
As reported by analytics firm Circana and analyst Mat Piscatella on Bluesky (h/t IGN and Star Wars News Net), Star Wars Battlefront II managed to become the twelfth bestselling game in the United States throughout the month of May this year. This figure was calculated by dollar sales, so free-to-play games would not be included on the chart. Piscatella’s post clarified that Battlefront II had been the 125th bestselling game in May, which means its ascension to twelfth place the following month was a gigantic leap forward.
The game managed to move forward an incredible 122 places on the sales chart within a single month, and this is certainly an incredible achievement. Piscatella also noted that Battlefront II came in at number five on the "PC aggregated storefront tracking," which means that PC gamers are particularly responsible for its renewal in popularity.
If you would like to read Piscatella's full comments on Battlefront II's sudden increase in popularity after so many years, IGN provided the following quotation from him, in which he attributed factors such as the success of Andor and the 20th anniversary re-release of Revenge of the Sith to the game's renewed success:
"The player surge for Battlefront 2 started with Revenge of the Sith’s 20th anniversary re-release back in early May, then really picked up with Andor. Players peaked in the week of May 25 and then started to fall back a bit. There was another bump in mid- to late-June as the game was put into various sales and things as well, but that’s a story for two weeks from now."
Star Wars Battlefront II was developed by DICE and published by EA, and unlike its predecessor, it thankfully featured a campaign mode. The campaign took place shortly after Return of the Jedi and focused on Inferno Squad, an elite Imperial Squadron that attempted to carry out Emperor Palpatine’s final wishes after his death. The game also featured plenty of multiplayer modes and locations, so fans had plenty of gameplay options to choose from.
Although the initial success of Battlefront II was sadly marred by the loot box controversy, with the game helping to ignite a massive debate on whether using loot boxes should be classed as gambling. But regardless of the controversy, Star Wars fans will still be ecstatic to see such an old game suddenly becoming massively popular again.
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