Electronic Arts emphasizes again and again that Battlefield 6 has the largest beta ever. A new record confirms this and attacks the major competitor.
What is this record? With the start of the open beta and the end of the early access testing phase, Battlefield 6 has set a new high for player numbers. On Saturday evening, the game had around 521,000 concurrent players on Steam alone (via SteamDB).
Battlefield 6 has thus also broken the record held by the major competitor Call of Duty that had stood for nearly 3 years. This record was from November 2022 at the release of the latest Modern Warfare 2.
The most successful Battlefield on Steam ever
What does this mean for Battlefield? Battlefield 6 has also shattered its own record on Valve’s gaming platform. No Battlefield has ever had anywhere near so many concurrent players on Steam. The previous record holders were the latest installments Battlefield 5 and Battlefield 2042:
- Battlefield 3 – 1,412
- Battlefield 4 – 12,425
- Battlefield Hardline – 292
- Battlefield 1 – 53,714
- Battlefield V – 116,104
- Battlefield 2042 – 107,376
The previous record holder is even the open beta of Battlefield 2042, which had a peak of 156,665 players (via SteamDB).
The relatively low player numbers of the older games are mainly due to the fact that the games were all released on Steam in June 2020. Prior to that, Battlefield was played primarily on EA’s own launcher, Origin. The player numbers from Origin or the EA App and Battle.net, as well as from PlayStation and Xbox, are not known – neither for the old nor for the new Battlefield 6.
Overall, it remains to be seen how these player numbers will translate to the full release. The beta is free to play, while the full game will cost 70 euros on Steam. The former president of Blizzard believes that, Battlefield will stomp Call of Duty into the ground this year.
How has the beta been received so far? Overall, quite well. Many players find Battlefield 6 much better than Battlefield 2042 and celebrate the return of the familiar Battlefield feeling. Although there are some individual technical issues, for a large part of the community, it feels like a step back to the original successful formula.
Only on Reddit is there criticism of the game. One of the main points of criticism is that the game feels too much like a Call of Duty due to the map design and the relatively fast movement. However, some Battlefield veterans contradict this assessment. You can read more about the criticism on MeinMMO: The Battlefield 6 beta makes many fans happy, but some players hate 3 major aspects of the game
