Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) is worth it in 2026 at $9.99 or on a subscription, as long as you buy it on the same platform as the people you want to play with. As of September 17 it is $9.99 on Steam, 75 percent off its $39.99 list, and it is included with EA Play, so Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass get it too. EA stopped adding content in April 2020, but the official servers are up, Steam's reviews sit at 88 percent positive across more than 100,000, and our tracker's daily peak on Steam has run between 1,163 and 1,716 for the last two weeks. There is no crossplay, and that is the one thing that can ruin the purchase. Here is the price on every store, what the fan-run Kyber project adds on PC, and who should buy the 2005 game instead.
What you are buying
DICE's 2017 shooter, the second Battlefront of the EA era: 40-player Galactic Assault, Supremacy with its capital ship phase, Starfighter Assault, Heroes vs. Villains, and heroes and maps from across the Skywalker Saga. It launched on November 17, 2017 into the loot-box backlash that set its Metacritic score at 68, which is why our all-time ranking has it 12th: the lowest score on that list and one of its most played games. The same ranking says what most people mean when they say Battlefront II is the 2005 game. They are different games, and this page is about the 2017 one.
What happened after launch is the reason to reconsider it. In March 2018 EA rebuilt progression so that anything affecting gameplay is earned by playing and cannot be bought; the Crystals you can still buy with real money get cosmetics only. DICE then shipped 25 free content updates over more than two years, covering all three film eras, and closed with the Battle on Scarif on April 29, 2020. Its creative director said the team was "moving away from delivering regular content updates," and left the game to its servers, challenges and events. Nothing has changed since.
So the game you buy today is the finished one. Every hero, map and mode that ever shipped is in it, and EA is not adding more. On Steam the only edition sold is the Celebration Edition, which bundles the cosmetics: EA lists more than 25 hero appearances and more than 125 trooper and reinforcement appearances. The content updates were free to every player, so the cheaper standard edition that the console stores still sell plays the same game.
Is anyone still playing?
Yes. Our tracker reads Steam's concurrent-player count every two hours. From September 4 to 17, Battlefront II's busiest reading each day ran from 1,163 to 1,716. Weekends carry it: 1,599 to 1,716 on Saturdays and Sundays, against 1,163 to 1,380 on most weekdays. The quietest weekday readings, overnight, sat between 401 and 540, Labor Day aside.
The timing matters if you are in North America. The day's high lands between noon and 3 p.m. Central in our readings, which is evening in Europe. From 6 to 8 p.m. Central, Steam averaged about 1,000 players. That is plenty for the main modes, and it is not the peak.
Those are Steam players only. PC players on the EA app and Epic share the same servers, and the console players are in separate pools we cannot count. We break the population down properly, including what it means for getting into a match, in our Battlefront II player count page.
The longer view: the game had a second life in 2025. The Kyber team organized a fan Resurgence Day on May 24, 2025, and by June Steam counted 35,321 players at once, the most in the game's history there, according to SteamCharts. That wave has receded. August 2026 averaged 1,188 players on Steam, a little above August 2024's 937, from before the surge. The reviews have held: 86 percent of the 539 Steam reviews written in the last 30 days are positive, in line with the lifetime 88.
The servers, the cheaters, and Kyber
EA's official servers are still running, six years past the last content update, and EA has announced no plan to switch them off. They were not in good shape on PC in 2025. That spring, cheaters were wrecking official Galactic Assault and Supremacy matches with mass teleports and lobbies where nobody could spawn, according to players on EA's own forums and the Kyber team. EA pushed a server-side fix in April 2025, and in January 2026 the Kyber team, which reports exploits to EA, said EA had patched most of the 16 server exploits it flagged during 2025, including the Galactic Assault teleports and endless timers in Supremacy. That is a fan group's account rather than an EA announcement, and it is the most specific one available. Every report we found was about PC, not console.
Kyber is the other half of the PC story. It is a free, fan-made launcher that adds community-run servers to the PC version: a server browser, private matches, dedicated 24/7 servers, mod support, proximity voice chat and a spectator mode. It is not affiliated with EA. After nearly four years of development it opened to every PC player as a free open beta on December 20, 2025, went open source in January 2026, and still calls itself a beta; its own launch post warned of bugs and crashes. Kyber's official servers run Battlefront Plus, a community overhaul that added a Conquest mode in October 2025, and whose May 1, 2026 update added a C-PH patrol speeder on Tatooine, a repair tool for Officers, and TIE Strikers and U-wings on more maps.
To use it you need to own the game on the EA app, Steam or Epic, and to log in with your EA account. For a PC buyer it is the strongest argument in this article: the 2017 Battlefront II is still getting new content, just not from EA, and only on PC.
Playing without other people
You can. Instant Action puts you on the large maps with and against bots, and the Scarif update added a solo version of Co-Op where every other soldier is a bot. Arcade offers short scenarios against bots, and on PS4 and Xbox One it supports two-player split-screen; PC does not get split-screen. EA called the solo Co-Op option offline play, but the Steam listing still requires an internet connection and an EA account, so do not count on any of it without one.
The campaign follows Iden Versio, an Imperial special forces commander, and it is short; DICE's own estimate before launch was five to six hours. It looks superb and it is not a reason to buy the game.
The price to pay
Prices below are U.S. store prices checked the week of September 17.
| Where | Price | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Steam, Celebration Edition | $9.99 (list $39.99), sale ends September 28 | Yes |
| EA app, Celebration Edition | $9.99 (list $39.99) | Yes; same servers as Steam |
| PlayStation Store, standard edition | $4.99 (list $19.99), sale ends September 24 | Yes, the cheapest way in right now |
| PlayStation Store, Celebration Edition | $39.99 | No; the standard edition plays the same game |
| Xbox Store | $19.99 standard, $39.99 Celebration, no sale | Wait for a sale, or use Game Pass Ultimate |
| EA Play | $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year | Yes on PC and PlayStation, where it is included |
| Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass | $22.99 or $13.99 a month, includes EA Play | Yes, if you already pay for it |
| Game Pass Essential or Premium | not included | No; neither tier includes EA Play |
Two notes on that table.
On PlayStation, buy it rather than subscribe. EA's price for a month of EA Play, $5.99, is more than this week's $4.99, and the purchase is yours to keep. On Xbox, if you already pay for Ultimate, it is included; our Game Pass guide has the tier math, and the cheaper tiers do not get it.
On PC, the EA app is not optional. The Steam version needs the EA app installed and your Steam account linked to an EA account; you cannot play without both. Buying on Steam or the EA app puts you in the same player pool, so pick whichever store you prefer. At $9.99 it is one of the better deals in the Star Wars games on Steam right now.
Which platform to buy it on
The one that your friends use. Battlefront II has no crossplay: PC, PlayStation and Xbox are three separate populations that never meet, and EA has said it has no plans to add it. A PS5 plays the PS4 version and an Xbox Series X|S plays the Xbox One version, and each shares its pool with the older console.
If you are choosing with no one to match, PC is the version we would buy. It is $9.99 this week on Steam and the EA app, its Steam population is the only one anyone can see, and Kyber's servers and mods exist only there. The catch is that PC is where the cheating was. Consoles get split-screen Arcade, which PC never had.
Steam Deck works for most people who have tried it, without Valve's blessing. Valve rates it Unsupported; ProtonDB has it at Gold across 497 reports, and the EA app has to come along. Our Steam Deck guide has the detail.
Who should skip it
Skip it if you are buying for the story. The campaign is an afternoon, and if you want single-player Star Wars, Jedi: Survivor is the game, also on EA Play.
If the Battlefront you want is the one you grew up with, with space battles where you land in an enemy hangar and fight through the ship on foot, that is the 2005 Battlefront II, which Steam still sells for $9.99 and which sits at 95 percent positive in our Steam ranking. The 2017 game looks far better and does not do that. It still plays online, too: how to get into a match in 2026.
Official content ended in 2020, so this is the wrong game for anyone who needs one that keeps growing. On console, what you see today is all there will be; on PC, Kyber is the only source of anything new, and it is a volunteer project in beta.
And if your friends are on a different platform, pass. No price makes up for a game you cannot play together.
Verdict
Worth it. Not at $39.99. On PC, $9.99 on Steam, in a sale that runs to September 28, gets you the finished game, a Steam population that peaks above 1,100 every day, and Kyber on top. On PlayStation, $4.99 until September 24 is the lowest price on any store we checked this week. If you already have Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass or EA Play, install it tonight. It is the best-looking large-scale Star Wars shooter ever made, and in 2026 it is also one of the cheapest.
