(BIG UPDATE) Wanna play Battlefield 2, but can't use BF2Hub? Try this

[ShiftyMarmot]

UPDATE 4.11.2024: This patch is no longer needed, there is a new way to play BF2 online with a working account creation and ranking system, Back 2 Battlefield 2, check it out at: https://b2bf2.net/


So BF2Hub has been the main way to play Battlefield 2, since Gamespy closure. But since june, the service has been down for maintenance, only working for those who created an account prior to it going down, with no sign of return any time soon. And because of it being down, account creation has been disabled. If you're craving to play BF2 again, but don't have a BF2Hub account, there exists an alternative, OpenSpy via BF2 Migrator. Let's get into it.

Requirements: Battlefield 2 patched to 1.50, if you have the Steam or Origin release, those ones are already patched, so you're good to go, if you don't have the digital release(s), grab a disc copy and patch it to 1.41 and then 1.50, https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Battlefield_2#Patches

Steps:
1. Go to https://github.com/cetteup/bf2-migrator/releases/latest and download the latest version, download either "bf2-migrator-v0.6.1-windows-386.zip" OR "bf2-migrator-v0.6.1-windows-amd64.zip"
"Windows-386" is for 32-bit Windows, while "AMD64" is for 64-bit, so for the majority of users, you're gonna wanna pick "AMD64". And of course, in the future, there will be a version higher than "0.6.1", that's just the current version, as long as you download the latest build, you're good.

2. Extract the exe and run it.

3. Make sure the Battlefield 2 path is correct, then from the "Provider" dropdown menu, choose OpenSpy, and click "Apply Patch", and you're done. Just launch the game, create an account and start fighting!


Sounds good? Well there are a couple caveats, such as there being no stats and ranking on OpenSpy, so you cannot rank up and unlock weapons, though servers like Super@, GOTE and DOG do have all weapons unlocked for everyone, so even OpenSpy players can use all weapons on their servers, but servers like 2F4Y do not, which brings me onto the second caveat, you cannot play on 2F4Y on anything, other than BF2Hub, it will warn you and then kick you when playing on anything other than BF2Hub, that seems to be the only server that does that, no clue if any other servers do that.

If BF2Hub ever does come back up fully operational, re launch the migrator program and click "Revert patch", this will remove the OpenSpy/PlayBF2 patch from the game, so you can then patch it with BF2Hub

Hopefully this helped you get back into BF2.

Credit to Cetteup for the patch, if you do run into any issues, while i will try to help you, since i'm not the patch creator, there's only so much i can do, so i recommend writing an Issue on the Github repository.

[ShiftyMarmot]

UPDATE 4.10.2024: This patch is no longer needed, there's a new way to play online with working ranking system, link in the OP.

I get what you might be saying, "this looks exactly like the Revive website", and you'd be right, but i've been told by the people working on this project that they have some of the Revive devs on board, and that they will eventually overhaul the website. For now they'll use the old website design as it's easy to understand for new players.

If you need help with this, join their Discord, they're very friendly and helpful. You can even ask them to import your BF2Hub stats over to the B2BF2 network, so you're not losing anything. :)

[Stabilo ᐰ]

Guess im missing something.
I downloaded the launcher and pressed "repair", game starts downloading, but download is not very fast and stops at some big zip files.
Since download page says "If you already have the game installed through EA's Origin or Valve's Steam platforms, the Launcher will not download the full game." i just downloaded bf2 through steam and put it inside Battlefield 2 subfolder where launcher exe is. But then launcher just made a new folder called 'Phoenix games' and downloads the client again. And it still stops halfway with certain big files like Objects_clients.zip. There no overall progress in the launcher, no way to resume downloading, no way to download files separately as far as im aware. I hope 'repair' button does all that. Maybe discord has more links but i cant access it now.
Anyway, thanks for the efforts of keeping this game alive.

[ShiftyMarmot]

Originally posted by Stabilo ᐰ:

Guess im missing something.
I downloaded the launcher and pressed "repair", game starts downloading, but download is not very fast and stops at some big zip files.
Since download page says "If you already have the game installed through EA's Origin or Valve's Steam platforms, the Launcher will not download the full game." i just downloaded bf2 through steam and put it inside Battlefield 2 subfolder where launcher exe is. But then launcher just made a new folder called 'Phoenix games' and downloads the client again. And it still stops halfway with certain big files like Objects_clients.zip. There no overall progress in the launcher, no way to resume downloading, no way to download files separately as far as im aware. I hope 'repair' button does all that. Maybe discord has more links but i cant access it now.
Anyway, thanks for the efforts of keeping this game alive.

Hi! To use your steam install, you gotta do one of two things.

Either 1: where you installed the B2BF2 client, go inside the Phoenix Games folder, and create a new folder called "Battlefield2" without quotes and without a space in between Battlefield and 2, then paste your BF2 steam install there.

OR 2: Please check in your Documents if there is a folder called "B2BF" and inside a file called "settings.xml", if so, open that, and there should be a line that has <GamePath> on it, in between <GamePath> and </GamePath>, paste in your steam install path, usually it's the Program Files 86 thingy, so it should look like this:

 <GamePath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Battlefield 2</GamePath> 

Now run the launcher as an admin, sign in and it should ask if you wanna use your Steam install.

If none of this worked for you, sadly since i'm not part of the dev team, i cannot help further, i'm just someone spreading word about this project, please join the discord and the people working on it are happy to assist.

[Stabilo ᐰ]

Originally posted by ShiftyMarmot:

Originally posted by Stabilo ᐰ:

Guess im missing something.
I downloaded the launcher and pressed "repair", game starts downloading, but download is not very fast and stops at some big zip files.
Since download page says "If you already have the game installed through EA's Origin or Valve's Steam platforms, the Launcher will not download the full game." i just downloaded bf2 through steam and put it inside Battlefield 2 subfolder where launcher exe is. But then launcher just made a new folder called 'Phoenix games' and downloads the client again. And it still stops halfway with certain big files like Objects_clients.zip. There no overall progress in the launcher, no way to resume downloading, no way to download files separately as far as im aware. I hope 'repair' button does all that. Maybe discord has more links but i cant access it now.
Anyway, thanks for the efforts of keeping this game alive.

Hi! To use your steam install, you gotta do one of two things.

Either 1: where you installed the B2BF2 client, go inside the Phoenix Games folder, and create a new folder called "Battlefield2" without quotes and without a space in between Battlefield and 2, then paste your BF2 steam install there.

OR 2: Please check in your Documents if there is a folder called "B2BF" and inside a file called "settings.xml", if so, open that, and there should be a line that has <GamePath> on it, in between <GamePath> and </GamePath>, paste in your steam install path, usually it's the Program Files 86 thingy, so it should look like this:

 <GamePath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Battlefield 2</GamePath> 

Now run the launcher as an admin, sign in and it should ask if you wanna use your Steam install.

If none of this worked for you, sadly since i'm not part of the dev team, i cannot help further, i'm just someone spreading word about this project, please join the discord and the people working on it are happy to assist.

Thank you. So repair button does exactly what i hoped it would and after several retries game is ready to play now. Account logging in working fine. Thanks for your response.

[ShiftyMarmot]

Great to hear you got it working. Have fun! :)

[ShiftyMarmot]

For those of you who have BF2 on Steam, and you wanna run the game via Steam after installing the B2BF client and patching your Steam install, you can't by default, as the patched BF2.exe needs to be launched via the Launcher, it will tell you that if you try to run via Steam or directly from exe. So, if you wanna run via Steam, and have your playtime counted, you need to add this to the game's properties as a launch option.

"C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\B2BF Launcher\B2BF.Launcher.exe" %command%

Copy that to the launch option field, and replace the USERNAME part with your name, to check it, go to C:\Users and see what the username is. After this, when you launch the game via Steam, it will instead of launching BF2.exe, launch the launcher exe, from here, just start the game via the launcher and it will boot up and the overlay will work in game.

[AquaDuck]

B2BF2 is going to get shutdown by EA, it's distributing game files (which is a big no-no even though you literally can't get the game anymore).

I expect this to also attract unwanted attention to BF2Hub.

[ShiftyMarmot]

Originally posted by AquaDuck:

B2BF2 is going to get shutdown by EA, it's distributing game files (which is a big no-no even though you literally can't get the game anymore).

I expect this to also attract unwanted attention to BF2Hub.

I don’t think Hub would be shut down, because Hub only acts as a patch for existing installs, rather than providing the game files, and EA seems to be fine with these third party ways to play the game as long as they don’t infringe on their copyright.

I do think B2BF2 should also act as just a patch for existing installs, instead of providing game files.

[Smitdog]

Download bf2hub.com It took over when gamespy left. works great!

[aveztruz]

so, if it has some of the original revive project developers, they are going to bring back bf2142 eventually?

[ShiftyMarmot]

Originally posted by aveztruz:

so, if it has some of the original revive project developers, they are going to bring back bf2142 eventually?

Months ago the head developer didn't explicitly say that BF2142 in particular will get a Revival project, but they did say something like "there's a reason this project is called 'Back 2 Battlefield'". So it could still happen one day, i'd definitely look forward to it.

[aveztruz]

i hope it does, for unrevived battlefield games as well (like bfp4f)