2004’s First Star Wars Battlefront Has Multiplayer Again

The first Star Wars Battlefront, from 2004, has got its multiplayer mode back. Since going down with Gamespy in 2014, that hasn’t worked anymore. Players can now compete against each other with up to 32 in a server, including players who bought the game on GOG.

It’s not entirely clear who is behind the update, but the chosen moment is pretty close to May the 4th, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. The original developer of this game, Pandemic Studios, closed its doors in 2009. Pandemic parent company Electronic Arts owns the rights to the Battlefront franchise and continues to release Battlefront games and content, but the rights to the overarching Star Wars franchise are owned by Disney.

The multiplayer mode is a bit smaller than before: where the original supported 64 players, that is now half. The reason for this is not mentioned in the update notes. Star Wars Battlefront II received a similar update in 2017: multiplayer was also possible there, again cross-platform between GOG and Steam, but with 64 players.