I never used to be that big of a Star Wars guy. In fact, I didn’t see my first episode of Star Wars until I was nine, over at a friend’s. “The Empire Strikes Back,” Episode V, played on the big screen in the living room that day.
The part I joined my buddy on the couch to see was the scene on Hoth where Luke Skywalker used his lightsaber to slice open a tauntaun and then crawled inside it for warmth. I walked away at the sight of the gore and told my friend “This wasn’t for me.”
I watched the first two and enjoyed them a little more than the Hoth scene I saw in the fifth episode. Then I reached Episode III, “Revenge of the Sith,” and I was obsessed. Particularly with the character General Grievous.
As a child he was the most aesthetically pleasing thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on. An unstoppable 7-foot-tall cyborg with four arms was kid me’s imaginary fantasy. Since then, I’ve kept up to date with Star Wars media for a while.
A few years later in 2017, Star Wars Battlefront II hit my radar, and I thought I’d might as well check it out. I was already playing the first one that came out on a regular basis, so it made sense to me.
I would later find out the EA would be running the show, which gave me some nerves. It was developed by DICE, Motive Studios, and Criterion Games. I found out DICE would be the main lead in development, so I then scoured the internet for some of the gameplay footage.
I was stoked. I found the trailer for Battlefront II on YouTube where sequel and prequel content was added, which would bring all three trilogies together in one game. Then the idea of me possibly playing as Grievous in a multiplayer game filled the child in me to the brim with excitement.
However, I was met with more disappointment than I thought was possible.
I downloaded the game on my Xbox One and began to look at the roster of heroes for new characters that were added. This was the part where I remembered that this game was in the hands of EA.
Not only was there one character in the roster to represent the prequel trilogy (I’m not counting Yoda), but just about every character was behind a pay wall. Luke Skywalker, practically the face of the franchise, was behind a pay wall!
On top of that, the gameplay wasn’t much better. Battlefront II was created with countless sorts of bugs attached. So many bugs that I recommend checking out Andrej Mernik’s Gaming channel on YouTube. They made a compilation of all types bugs throughout Battlefront’s development where you can see AI ignore walls, crazy rag doll interactions, and more.
On top of that, there wasn’t one, not two, but three different in-game currencies. Each of these currencies had their designated spending spot, but the good stuff people wanted was Credits. Credits could be used to buy loot boxes which were way too dependent on character progression.
So in retaliation, I took the game off my home screen and took my need for Star Wars entertainment elsewhere. But in that back of my mind, I really wanted to go back to the game, because it had potential.
A few examples include the amazing visuals, I liked certain game mechanics that were changed from the previous game, and I still had hope that Grievous would make his way into the game. Then he did!
It took a whole year, but on Oct. 30, 2018, he was added to the game after an update which was named after him: the General Grievous Update. The joy I felt when my 12-year-old hands got to play the goofy four-armed cyborg was immeasurable. I ended up changing my gamertag to General4Arms (also known as G4A) because of it, which still stands to this day.
Then the craziest thing happened, positive news kept showing up out of nowhere. EA tore down its paywalls because it upset Disney, DICE got a new creative lead developer, Dennis Bränvall, who was actually listening to the community, and the game started to receive consistent updates!
But it was when player counts finally started climbing and the Battlefront community was growing stronger then ever, that EA chose to fire the shot that was heard around the world.
On April 19, 2020, EA announced they would be shifting DICE’s attention away from Star Wars Battlefront II to Battlefield 6 which was a new game scheduled to release later in 2021.
This devastating news meant a few things. First, Battlefront would receive no more updates and go into maintenance mode. Second, the lack of new content would cause lower player counts. And lastly, EA left the game behind at its peak, which says a lot about how EA views Battlefront II.
Other than Battlefield 6, EA was also dropping Battlefront II because their profits were on the lower end ever since Disney suggested to take down the paywalls. And it’s not like Battlefront was charity work from EA, hell, they’re still profiting of Battlefront today!
In 2025, EA reported $1.67 billion in net revenue for the quarter ending in June 30, far surpassing expectations. This happened because the Battlefront Community united and encouraged any and everyone to purchase Star Wars Battlefront II to encourage EA to start developing Battlefront III.
As a result of this community event, it was in May 2025 were the game leapt from 135th to 12th on U.S. sales charts. It wasn’t until June 19 that Star Wars Battlefront II would reach its highest consecutive player count of 35,892 — just on Steam.
This game is nine years old, it’s had no fresh content since 2020, and gamers like me are still loading it up simply for the love of the game.
But going back to the idea of Battlefront III. Bränvall proposed the idea of Battlefront III to EA but he was turned down for no good reason. EA wanted to focus on its own dying game and this was enough to make Bränvall leave DICE entirely.
Bränvall left not only because of EA’s unfathomable amount of greed, but because the DICE had so much left-over content they couldn’t put in the game. Bränvall revealed that there “may or may not have been” plans for Ahsoka Tano, Asajj Ventress, and Mustafar in a “Clone Wars drop” that would have followed Scarif.
But I must admit, I’m proud that the Battlefront II community pulled off such a powerful resurgence, even if it was for a little bit. It shows how much life is still living inside this game and that we won’t let EA shove us around without retaliation. We’re fighters, we’ve had each other’s backs since the beginning and we’re still fighting for the future of this game.
As a final message to EA, for denying Dennis Bränvall the opportunity to create Battlefront III, for a disappointing launch you gave this game, and for killing the Battlefront at one of its highest peaks. I have this to say to you on behalf of the Star Wars Battlefront II community.
Stop being greedy bastards, it’s cringe, and give us Battlefront III already.
