It's safe to say that no one expected EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2 to turn out like this. As soon as it was released, it became a galactic billboard for excessive microtransactions, with fans screaming about gameplay difficulty and premium currency, and even Disney getting involved. Shortly after its release, microtransactions were temporarily removed, but soon became permanent.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, developer DICE worked hard to support the game, and publisher EA was clearly heartbroken by the reaction, promising to make all future DLC free. over the course of two and a half years, the game has received a vast amount of content from the entire series of Star Wars content from across the series, and its reputation steadily grew.

Twelve days ago, the Celebration Edition of "Battlefront 2" was released for free on the Epic store and immediately became so popular that EA's servers were in chaos: over 19 million Force fans had the game.

Note the definitive and polite assertion that "Battlefront 2" will end with DLC, which is not accurate, as DICE always stated last year that "Battle for Scarif" would be the last major addition beyond in-game challenges and regular events. This is not news.

Still, offering all the kit for free to some 20 million players was not how they expected Battlefront 2 to end: ...... As the little man once said, it is hard to see, but the future is always in motion. No less a Jedi Master than our own Fraser estimated that by the time it was all over, Battlefront 2 would have been the best Star Wars game in years.