Despite all odds, Battlefield 2042 may actually have convinced players to stick around

Battlefield 2042 actually did it and made the comeback that most said was impossible. It all started last weekend when the game kicked off another free weekend across all platforms, accompanied by a strong sell-out.

Since we can only see the numbers on Steam, it looked like both were working to get player numbers eerily close to the game’s all-time high at the same time. While this has already been a bigger success than any other Battlefield 2042 similar promotions in the past, it looks like it wasn’t a coincidence.

The real test of whether the promotion convinces new players Strictly speaking With Battlefield 2042, the question naturally remained as to whether these numbers could remain as close as possible to the highs of the free weekend. After such weekends of free access, the number of players almost always drops, as a proportion of players try the game and continue playing if they are not enthusiastic.

So how are things going for DICE’s shooter? Very good, it turns out! According to SteamDB, Battlefield 2042’s 24-hour concurrent peak was 99,274, which is very close to the weekend’s 104,060. At the time of writing, the game has almost 93,000 players in the game, placing it in the always lucrative Steam top ten most played games.

Of course, the sale will remain active for another six days, so there’s a good chance that most of the players are newbies who took advantage of the sale price/free weekend. Steam’s sales charts are based on revenue, so it looks like that worked out quite well for EA too – as Battlefield 2042 is also one of the top ten bestsellers on Steam.

The timing for a revival is bittersweet. For once, DICE’s work over the last two years seems to have finally paid off. But it also comes right after the game has received what will most likely be its last major content update, so there’s only so much EA can do to capitalize on this rush of new players, and only so much content they can play/access they can look forward to.

Still, it will be very interesting to see if Battlefield 2042 can keep up with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 as its November 10th release date is fast approaching.