Star Wars Battlefront II has been claimed 19 million times on Epic Games Store promotion

EA reports that more than 19 million players claimed Star Wars Battlefront II in the week the game was free on the Epic Games Store. It’s the first time a major publisher has detailed numbers in an Epic giveaway.

Star Wars Battlefront II was free to claim on the Epic Games Store from January 15-21 and EA reports that more than 19 million people have done so. It is unknown how many of those people actually downloaded and played the game. The free games in the Epic Games Store can be claimed over a period of time and are then permanently added to the user’s library.

The giveaway will bring more players online in Star Wars Battlefront II. On the first day of the promotion, the influx caused problems, causing players to see error messages. EA fixed that by de scale up server capacity. The game came out in 2017 when it didn’t do as well as EA expected. The publisher thought it could deliver eight million copies in the first quarter after release, but that fell about a million. There was a lot of controversy surrounding microtransactions in the game.

Games are given away weekly in the Epic Games Store, but in general it is unknown how often those free games are claimed. Some publishers and developers do give details about that. For example, it turned out that Remnant: From The Ashes has been claimed over 10 million times at a giveaway last year. Football Manager 2020 was claimed a million times in three days. Sega’s strategy game A Total War Saga: Troy has been downloaded 7.5 million times from the Epic Games Store in the first 24 hours of its release. In that short period the game was free, after that the game cost 50 euros.

Epic Games previously showed in an infographic that a total of 200 million copies of free games had been claimed in 2019. In that year, 73 million games were given away. The biggest giveaway to date is believed to be Grand Theft Auto V. Back in May 2020, that game was free to claim on the Epic Games Store, causing huge crowds and disruptions to the download store. Figures on that giveaway were never disclosed. In June last year, Epic said its games platform has 61 million monthly active users.

Star Wars Battlefront II