Star Wars: Battlefront 2 Classic gets a multiplayer update 12 years after release

It’s not every day you see a 12-year-old game get worked on, but it’s a welcome surprise when it does happen. Pandemic’s original Star Wars: Battlefront 2 game, which originally debuted back in 2005, got a surprise patch yesterday, which is admittedly light, though it has elicited over 380 user comments on the update announcement on Steam. Apparently, DICE’s Battlefront 2, which released earlier this year, has caused more than a few gamers to flock back to the much-loved original.

Here’s what the patch does:

• Minor bug fixes and optimized performance, the most important fixes are:
  • Lobby functionality has been improved
  • Steam usernames should now display correctly
  • Ping calculations are more accurate

A lot of the user comments call for Steam Workshop support, which if done, would undoubtedly cause the game to blow up. Pandemic’s Battlefront 2 still plays well even by modern standards and its specs are playable on pretty much any laptop you can find on the low end. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s only $10 for admission, and has no microtransactions.

Going even further, a Metacritic score comparison for Pandemic’s original Battlefront 2 and DICE’s modern release is heavily skewed towards the former. The PC version of the original holds an average score of 78 (the PS2 version is an 84) while DICE’s stumbled to a 66.

Pandemic’s Battlefront 2 original has also seen something of a renaissance in recent memory, as multiplayer support just recently returned to the game back in October 2017. Perhaps the developers were sensing an opportunity through the Force, or more likely they were banking on a massive PR shitstorm to hit the new game and scrambled to make theirs relevant again.

Either way, it works for the fans.