Battlefield 6 has been released and has attracted over 700,000 fans on Steam right away. This means that the new installment of the shooter series has not only surpassed all predecessors but also left the biggest competitor behind.
On October 10, 2025, at 5:00 PM German time, the starting gun was fired: Battlefield 6 celebrated its release for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. As usual, the focus is on intense multiplayer battles, modern warfare, and plenty of action, including vehicles, infantry, and destructible environments.
Even the beta was well received by fans and caused a positive vibe, although there were criticisms. However, the developers made improvements, for example, revising the movement that some felt was too reminiscent of the hectic Call of Duty.
With the start of the open beta, Battlefield 6 reached a new peak in player numbers. On Saturday evening, the game had around 521,000 concurrent players on Steam alone (via SteamDB). At release, the shooter set an even higher record.
A live-action trailer from Battlefield 6 hits the competition right where it hurts:
Battlefield 6 reaches over 700,000 players in a short time
Here are the player numbers at the release: After the beta, Battlefield 6 managed to surpass itself once again. Immediately after launch, servers filled up in record time and alone on Steam, according to SteamDB, over 700,000 players were active. At 6:40 PM, Battlefield 6 finally reached its previous peak of 747,440 active players:
No other Battlefield entry has ever had so many concurrent players on Steam. The lower numbers of the older titles are also due to the fact that they have only been available on Steam since June 2020 – previously, everything ran through EA’s own launcher, Origin.
The games in comparison on Steam via SteamDB:
- Battlefield 3 – 1,412
- Battlefield 4 – 12,425
- Battlefield Hardline – 292
- Battlefield 1 – 53,714
- Battlefield V – 116,104
- Battlefield 2042 – 107,376
The current Call of Duty didn’t even reach half of the player numbers
How does the competition fare? According to SteamDB, the “Call of Duty” franchise (i.e., Modern Warfare, MW2, MW3, and Black Ops 6) reached an all-time peak of 491,670 players. That was in November 2022, shortly after the release of Modern Warfare 2.
At the launch of Black Ops 6, the latest and current installment of the shooter series, there were only about 315,000 players. The small increase at the end of the SteamDB graph is likely due to the open beta of Black Ops 7 and the current free trial week in Black Ops 6:
However, it must be said: A large part of the CoD community plays via Battle.net or console, where no exact player numbers are published. Therefore, we can only rely on the Steam data.
How this will look in November 2025 at the release of CoD: Black Ops 7 remains to be seen. However, the former president of Blizzard, Mike Ybarra, believes that Battlefield 6 will stomp Call of Duty into the ground this year.
Players seem satisfied so far, have “more fun than in the beta”
How is the game being received so far? In the evening of the release, there are some positive voices. For example, Excellent-Law528 writes on Reddit: “I’m having fun… this game is awesome!! I love it.”
The user Flow390 agrees: “I love it too! This is by far the most stable release I have experienced (aside from EA app errors). Since I got into the game this morning, I haven’t had any crashes, no server issues, and no performance issues.” Vmc324 also praises the game, saying: “I can’t wait to unlock all the weapons and see which ones suit me best.”
On Steam, there are currently (as of October 11, 10:30 AM) about 22,800 reviews, which are “mostly positive”. Criticism is primarily for performance problems, error messages, and queues. However, the developers previously announced the latter among other things on X – we reported on this in the live ticker.
Overall, things look very solid for Battlefield 6 so far: On Metacritic, the shooter has an average rating of 83 points (50 reviews, as of October 11, 00:20 AM). Many critics especially praise that the “good old Battlefield feeling” is finally back. In our summary, we compile the impressions of the first testers.
