The ten-year-old sci-fi shooter Battlefield 2142 is back, sort of, thanks to Battlefield 2142 Revive, a fan-made project that went into release just ahead of the weekend. It's free to download and play, and even though it isn't officially sanctioned, Electronic Arts so far seems content to let it slide.
As PCGamesN suggests, at least part of the reason for EA's good nature toward the project may be the fact that the original Battlefield 2142 is no longer playable. It fell victim to the Great Gamespy Shutdown of '14, and while EA originally said it was “working on transitioning [affected] games after the shutdown so you'll still be able to play them,” it changed its mind about a month later, owing to the “significant technical hurdles” involved in keeping them up.
So it's a win for EA in just about every possible way: The Battlefield franchise gets a little extra attention in the lead-up to Battlefield 1, someone else does all the heavy lifting, and EA gets credit for not stomping it out like a grass fire. And the revival is seeing some action, with server stats indicating a Monday afternoon concurrent player count in the high-300s. For the purposes of comparison, that wouldn't be enough to crack the top 100 on Steam, but it's pretty good for a fan revival of a dead FPS that—sorry, fans—was never what you'd call a runaway success in the first place.
Full details on Battlefield 2142 Revive, and the relevant download links, may be had at bl2142.co.
