Yes. Buy the standalone STAR WARS Battlefront II (Classic, 2005) for $9.99 on Steam or GOG, pick Multiplayer, then Join. Online play came back to that version in October 2017, and Steam and GOG owners share one server list. It is a small scene: players on the Steam forums this summer describe two or three busy games at a time, most with 5 to 20 people in them, fullest in the European evening. On PC, skip Aspyr's Battlefront Classic Collection. On PlayStation, Xbox or Switch it is the only current-console version, so buy it there and plan to play online with friends.
Two games are called Battlefront II
This guide is about Pandemic's 2005 game: the 501st campaign, Galactic Conquest, and space battles you can land in. EA and DICE's Battlefront II from 2017 is a different game on EA's servers, and a far busier one. Our tracker had it between 401 and 1,716 players on Steam over the same two weeks we measured for this piece. For that one, read whether Battlefront II is worth it in 2026 and its player count.
Which version to buy
Three listings sell the 2005 game on PC today. Two of them are the same game and play together; the third is Aspyr's 2024 re-release.
| Version | Price | Reviews | Online | Split-screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battlefront II (Classic, 2005) on Steam | $9.99 | 95% positive of 54,305 | In-game server list, shared with GOG | No |
| Battlefront II (Classic, 2005) on GOG | $9.99 | 4.5 of 5 from 396 owners | Same list, through the GOG Galaxy client | No |
| Battlefront Classic Collection (Aspyr) | About $35 | 24% positive of 7,787 | Aspyr's servers plus player-hosted games; no cross-platform play | Yes |
- Steam is the simplest. Launch it from Steam and go: the multiplayer runs on GOG's Galaxy technology in the background and shows your Steam name.
- GOG plays in the same games as Steam. Online needs the GOG Galaxy client installed and signed in. GOG's offline installer is the original retail build, which still looks for GameSpy and cannot get online.
- The Classic Collection bundles the 2004 and 2005 games for about $35 and wants 50GB of space, against the 4.3GB the standalone lists. What it adds is split-screen, full controller support and console versions. More on it below.
That is the same call we make in our Steam buying guide, where the 2005 game ranks fifth.
What happened to the online, briefly
The 2005 game's original multiplayer ran on GameSpy. GameSpy scheduled its shutdown for May 31, 2014, EA stretched Battlefront II's support to the end of June, and by July 25, 2014, every GameSpy game was offline. For three years the PC version lived on third-party services such as GameRanger.
On October 2, 2017, Steam and GOG both patched the game. The Steam announcement said multiplayer was back, for up to 64 players, and GOG's post the same day added cross-play between the two stores, built on GOG Galaxy. A second patch on January 3, 2018 improved lobbies, fixed how Steam names displayed and made ping readings more accurate.
That is where the code has stayed. A hotfix in February 2021 added controller support and UI scaling, broke other things, and was rolled back the next day.
How to get into a match
- Buy the right listing. On both stores it is called "STAR WARS Battlefront II (Classic, 2005)". The 2017 game has almost the same name.
- On GOG, install and launch through GOG Galaxy and stay signed in. Skip the offline installer if you want to play online.
- Main menu, Multiplayer, Join. The list shows every game Steam and GOG players are hosting. Pick by ping first, player count second.
- Keep the install close to vanilla. PCGamingWiki flags several mods as not online-compatible, while the Unofficial v1.3 Patch is listed as online-compatible. If you plan to host, a long-running community hosting guide on Steam warns that Anakin's Remastered mod breaks hosting.
- Aim for the European evening. Players report the busiest games are hosted in Europe, and US players have described lag on them this year.
If the list is empty, or a friend cannot see your game:
- Set your Windows network to Private and allow
BattlefrontII.exethrough Windows Firewall. The community hosting guide lists this as the usual fix. - Direct IP connection does not work in the Steam and GOG versions, according to PCGamingWiki, so you find each other through the list.
- To play with friends only, one of you hosts from the Create button and the rest join from the list. Host and guests need separate accounts.
How busy is it?
Our tracker counts the standalone 2005 game on Steam every couple of hours. Over the two weeks to Wednesday, September 16, its daily high ran from 166 to 259 players, about 200 on a typical day, and the overnight low never fell below 67. The last seven days:
| Day | Busiest | Quietest |
|---|---|---|
| Thu Sep 10 | 168 | 81 |
| Fri Sep 11 | 210 | 73 |
| Sat Sep 12 | 252 | 140 |
| Sun Sep 13 | 259 | 149 |
| Mon Sep 14 | 196 | 99 |
| Tue Sep 15 | 211 | 95 |
| Wed Sep 16 | 175 | 83 |
Weekends are busiest, and on most days the high lands between about 3:30 and 8:30pm Central. Two things to keep in mind: those counts include everyone running the game on Steam, campaign and Galactic Conquest players too, and they leave out GOG entirely. Because we sample every couple of hours, the true daily high runs a little above what we catch.
What players describe online is smaller. On the Steam forums in late August, one reported two or three full servers at a time, another said a game of 20 to 30 turns up sometimes but 5 to 15 is more usual, and a third said lobbies of 9 to 20 are easy to find. In January and February, players described one or two populated servers, mostly European; US players complained about lag, and a newcomer found the regulars very good. Going by those descriptions, a few dozen people are online at once, and the rest of that Steam count is playing against bots.
The Classic Collection is not in our tracker. SteamCharts, which logs Steam's own counts, has it averaging 25 players at a time in August against 136 for the standalone, and between 22 and 31 in every full month of 2026. That is both Pandemic games combined.
The Classic Collection, and when to buy it anyway
Aspyr released the collection on March 14, 2024, on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, and Switch: both Pandemic Battlefronts, up to 64 players online, split-screen, and extras that first shipped as Xbox downloads in 2006: the heroes Kit Fisto and Asajj Ventress plus four maps (Bespin: Cloud City, Rhen Var: Harbor, Rhen Var: Citadel and Yavin 4: Arena).
The launch went badly. Aspyr's statement that day blamed "critical errors with our network infrastructure": high ping, matchmaking errors, crashes, and servers missing from the browser. PC Gamer reported three 64-player servers for nearly 10,000 players on day one, and the Steam rating fell to Overwhelmingly Negative.
Three updates between March and June 20, 2024 fixed the worst of it, including players stuck on "Waiting for players" and disconnects between maps. There has been nothing since. Aspyr's support site lists no update after Update III, and its Steam posts for the collection this year have been sale announcements. The rating has recovered only as far as 24 percent positive, which Steam labels Mostly Negative.
The collection's online was built on Aspyr's own public servers plus games players host from the Multiplayer menu, and Aspyr has not posted about its servers since the June 2024 update. There is no cross-platform play; PS4 and PS5 owners can play together, as can Xbox One and Series owners, according to an Aspyr support reply reported just before launch. On the Steam forums this year, one player found the servers all empty in June; another, during a spike to 857 players in August, still found none to join; a third said in September that it plays more smoothly than the original. Aspyr publishes no console player numbers, and we have none.
Who should buy it anyway:
- Anyone on PS4, PS5, Xbox or Switch. It is the only current-console version. Buy it for the campaign, Galactic Conquest and split-screen, and treat online as something you arrange with friends.
- PC players who want couch split-screen. The standalone has none without third-party tools.
Everyone else on PC: the $9.99 standalone.
Old discs, old consoles and dedicated servers
- Retail PC discs: SWBFSpy. A fan-run replacement for GameSpy's master server, for the original PC Battlefront and Battlefront II; its hosts say PS2 is covered too. You patch the game's executable so it looks for SWBFSpy instead of GameSpy. The group we could confirm is active is SWBFGamers, whose forum had new posts this week. A rival group has used the same name, so take the patch from info.swbfgamers.com. SWBFGamers' FAQ says Steam copies can be patched as well. We have not tried that, it puts you on a separate server list from the Steam and GOG one, and it replaces a game file, so back up the folder first.
- Original Xbox: Insignia. The free fan replacement for the original Xbox Live service lists Battlefront II with matchmaking and leaderboards working. It is built for the original Xbox console.
- Dedicated servers. For a server that runs around the clock with bots and your own map rotation, the community tool is SWBF2Admin, a free server manager whose latest release came out in January 2026, and which the Steam hosting guide says works with every PC version. That guide, updated in July, walks through the launch commands. One catch it flags: a Steam copy cannot run a dedicated server and play on the same machine.
Steam Deck
Valve rates the standalone Playable; the default controller layout needs picking. ProtonDB has it Platinum across 173 reports. The Classic Collection is Verified, with full controller support. We have not tested online play on a Deck. The rest of the catalogue on Deck.
What we would do
On PC: the $9.99 standalone on Steam. Host a game with friends the first night, then go looking for the European lobbies once you remember which end of a Jedi starfighter to point at people. The regulars there are very good, and a space assault over Coruscant with a full server is still worth being shot down for.
On a console: the Classic Collection, on sale. Aspyr had it at 25 percent off for May the 4th this year. It is the only way to play the sixth game in our all-time ranking on a current console, and the campaign and split-screen hold up even when the server list does not.
The details
- Prices, review counts, install sizes, the Classic Collection's platforms and bonus content come from the Steam and GOG store listings, checked this week.
- The October 2017 restoration, the 64-player figure and the January 2018 patch notes come from the game's own Steam announcements; cross-play from GOG's announcement and changelog. GameSpy's shutdown dates are from the public record of the shutdown.
- The GOG Galaxy requirement, the offline installer, direct IP and mod compatibility come from PCGamingWiki's page for the game. Hosting advice comes from the long-running community hosting guide on Steam.
- Classic Collection launch problems and updates come from Aspyr's support site and Steam posts; the three-server figure from PC Gamer; the cross-play answer from an Aspyr support reply a player shared, as reported by Screen Rant and Game Rant in March 2024; the population from SteamCharts.
- Player reports come from each game's Steam discussion forums, January to September 2026. SWBFSpy, Insignia and SWBF2Admin details come from each project's own pages.
- Our tracker counts Steam only. We have not played online this month; if anything here has changed, we will correct it here, visibly.