6 year old battlefield 1 (opens in new tab) is currently undergoing a mini renaissance on Steam, hitting the top-selling games list, peaking at nearly 51,000 players today after three days of strong player numbers. This his 51K is about 10 times his 24 hour peak in the recently released Battlefield 2042. (opens in new tab) This data is courtesy of the unparalleled statistics tracking site SteamDB (opens in new tab).
If you’re wondering why gamers keep returning to World War I, take a look at Battlefield 1’s current 88% off sale. It’s not the US or European players that are causing the spike. These large player counts are concentrated between 12:00 and 14:00 UTC, with peak gaming hours between 8:00 and 10:00 PM in East Asian time zones such as China Standard Time. .
After all the hype surrounding Battlefield 2042’s changes to the series formula, the big boom in entries into the arguably obsolete series seems a little shaky, but perhaps this is a big deal. If 2042 were suddenly a peanut sale, we would most likely believe there would be an influx of players sampling the games we actually enjoyed. (opens in new tab).
First released in 2016 and added to Steam in 2020, Battlefield 1 takes the series back to World War I and uses an anthology campaign to focus on a broad spectrum of very neat and unexplored settings. I guessed (opens in new tab) PC Gamer UK Editor-in-Chief Phil Savage gave it an 89% rating. (opens in new tab) Coming back to the release, there’s a fair share of the vaunted “historical accuracy” that everyone always smacks of — the professional historians we showed it to didn’t dislike it. (opens in new tab)
Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 5 returned the series to its roots as a historical shooter as opposed to its modern and near-future counterpart. As a fan of BF1942 and its mod The Great War, I emphasize slow as hell tanks and horse power guns.
Battlefield 2042 has become even more controversial among series fans for changing some fundamentals of how it’s played, including an overhaul to the class system. That said, EA hasn’t given up yet. (opens in new tab) It also offers some unique fun, such as Battlefield Portal Mode. (opens in new tab)allowing for greater user creativity.
