'Star Wars: Battlefront' Boasts 9.5 Million Players In Beta

Earlier this month, many players tried out the new Star Wars: Battlefront in its beta stage. Before the open session, the game made appearances only at various trade shows like E3 and PAX Prime, all to increase the hype of the game before its November release. All of the anticipation seemed to work, as some 9.5 million players participated in the beta.

Even with only three available modes, players logged 1.6 billion minutes over the five-day period. For the large-scale battles in Walker Assault, players on the Rebel side destroyed over 780,000 AT-AT walkers. The same map also allowed players to summon Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, with both characters used nearly 6 million times each.

However, Darth Vader was slightly favored over his son. Vader's popular Force Choke ability was used 1.3 million times (that's a lot of people with a disturbing lack of faith). The game allowed players to progress only to level five, thus unlocking the jetpack. Of the 9.5 million players, nearly two-thirds of the group were able to reach the maximum level.

Initially, the beta was supposed to last for only four days, but the developers extended it by one day to test "extreme scenarios." Still, the large number of players in a short window shows promise for network stability for multiplayer games of varying player sizes.

Obviously, there's more work needed between the middle of October and the November 17 launch date, but the beta seemed to be a success for the team at DICE.

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Rexly Peñaflorida II is a Contributor at Tom’s Hardware. He writes news on tech and hardware, but mostly focuses on gaming news. As a Chicagoan, he believes that deep dish pizza is real pizza and ketchup should never be on hot dogs. Ever. Also, Portillo’s is amazing.

Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

  • nenadserbia
    I never payed a single dollar or euro for a game (except some very small in-game purchases in WOT and Navy Field), but I just might go for this one.
    Reply
  • And the game has no private servers/browser. So when they decide to shut down their corporate servers down in a couple years, you are stuck with a useless game, unless you enjoy shooting bots all day.
    Reply
  • Seamz
    I never payed a single dollar or euro for a game (except some very small in-game purchases in WOT and Navy Field), but I just might go for this one.

    This game in my opinion will be worth buying the base game, forget the season pass btw I think the idea of the season pass is silly. The immersion I felt playing this game was unlike any other game in the genre so far (FPS w/Vehicles). The combination of the sound effects and the way the bodies drop when they die and the graphics sold me on it. I won't be pre-ordering because of Dice/EA's record of having amazing limited BETA's and then the release was full of bugs you didn't see because of that limited view... cough cough BF4.
    Reply
  • ohim
    Because it was free... ask for 60$ + 50$ Premium and things will change
    Reply
  • therealduckofdeath
    I'm pretty sure there'll be more than ten million people buying this game before Christmas and that movie premiere, ohim. :)
    Reply
  • ohim
    16847567 said:
    I'm pretty sure there'll be more than ten million people buying this game before Christmas and that movie premiere, ohim. :)

    Though i am a SW fan i really hope people won`t go head in first on buying this game... i did the same with preordering BF4 back in the day and it took them half a year to make it play decent :)

    Fooled me once, not gonna happen again. Developers / publishers need to understand that rushing an unfinished game on the market (one that can cost up to 110$) is a no go!
    Reply
  • therealduckofdeath
    16848453 said:
    Though i am a SW fan i really hope people won`t go head in first on buying this game... i did the same with preordering BF4 back in the day and it took them half a year to make it play decent :)

    Fooled me once, not gonna happen again. Developers / publishers need to understand that rushing an unfinished game on the market (one that can cost up to 110$) is a no go!
    People will never learn. The need to have the game on day one beats the common sense knowing it won't be bug free until next year. :D
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    16847567 said:
    I'm pretty sure there'll be more than ten million people buying this game before Christmas and that movie premiere, ohim. :)

    I agree. I think the new movie is generating tons of buzz and helping to boost the game.

    It wasn't bad though. If it launches in the state it was in at the Beta then it might be one of the less buggy games at launch. Of course a lot can happen between now and launch so...
    Reply
  • 10tacle
    I think one of the most remarkable things about the game that seems to have gotten little attention is how hardware friendly it is while still looking gorgeous even on low-mid-range PCs. Even on a single GTX 680 at 1080p on ultra quality/FXAA it was hitting low-50s average FPS on my backup rig. My 970 SLI destroyed it at 1440p at the same quality settings. I just wish I'd have taken readings of how much GPU memory it was using.
    Reply