Battlefield 6’s Open Beta Winds Back The Clock

By Elijah Gonzalez | August 13, 2025 | 10:02am

Video Games Features battlefield 6

Battlefield 6’s Open Beta Winds Back The Clock

As Call of Duty, Fortnite, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, Counter Strike 2, and a few other shooters continue to thrive in the live service era, one of the former contenders hasn’t had the same cultural impact: Battlefield. The last game that entirely reached this level was Battlefield 1 in 2016, which sold around 15 million copies. It was followed up by Battlefield V, a game that was considered a fiscal letdown by the company’s CEO, Andrew Wilson. Then, things got worse.

Battlefield 2042 came out in 2021 and met fierce backlash due to its abundance of bugs and unpopular gameplay changes, like its specialist class system. Its player count rapidly plummeted after launch, eventually being overtaken by Battlefield V. Some of its developers were harassed, and its subreddit was almost shut down due to player hostility. Again, EA said in an earnings report that it failed to meet expectations.

And yet, despite this low point, a report from Ars Technica indicated that the next game in the series, Battlefield 6, had an astronomical target of reaching 100 million players. Considering that these games had sold around 88.7 million copies combined as of 2022, a 100 million player count seems outright absurd. Mix in the reported account of a troubled development cycle that missed its schedule and went over budget, and it seemed like things were headed for another potential mess.

However, at least based on Battlefield 6’s first open beta test this weekend, the game’s future is much more promising than I would have expected. On top of hitting over half a million concurrent players, my personal time with this multiplayer test was a firm reminder of the unique strengths of Battlefield compared to its competitors. Is it a fairly blatant pivot towards bringing back existing series fans instead of doing something new? For the most part, yes. But the benefit of this approach is that there just aren’t many other games staging these kinds of 32v32 player battles, making its turn towards the series’ past feel as surprisingly novel in the current gaming landscape.

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The Battlefield games have mostly existed in a space between more fast-paced shooters like Call of Duty and something more deliberate and “realistic” like Operation Flashpoint/Arma, with an emphasis on large-scale battles and vehicles. Its best entries gave players the tools to seamlessly construct setpiece moments for themselves, as helicopters rained down missiles, tanks rolled through battlements, and carefully placed C4 charges toppled buildings. It all resulted in the sense of being a small piece in a much larger picture, as dozens of players collided in a sandbox map to create memorable moments and emergent gameplay.

battlefield 6 beta impressions

The scope of each battle and the downtime between each engagement create a sense of slow-building tension that Battle Royales like PUBG have since sought to replicate—it’s no surprise that PUBG more or less spawned from an Arma 3 mod, a game that even further embraces this deliberate pace.

And while Battlefield 6 definitely nudges things a bit more towards Call of Duty with its fast-paced movement and more constrained map design (although apparently the levels in the beta are the smallest out of what the full game will offer), it still manages to capitalize on the chaos of 64 players duking it out as heavy armory meets heavier ordinance. The beta’s game modes very much orchestrate this carnage; there’s Conquest, where both teams attempt to occupy five objectives for as long as possible, and Breakthrough, where an attacking team tries to capture key points while a defending team beats them back. Both are longstanding classics that have been around for quite some time.

It all resulted in the type of dramatic moments that existing players will probably remember from previous installments. At one point, my squad and I defended the same exact hill for almost an entire match, lying prone as enemies climbed over sandbags and crossed through no man’s land while receiving covering fire from a distant tank. Helicopters flew overhead, grenades were lobbed, and teammates were dragged on their backs out of harm’s way.

At another point, my team set up at a chokepoint in an urban area, fighting for inches as both sides took turns sprinting through a particular doorway and getting cut down. Finally, the damn broke, and we pushed our way through to the objective. Later, while attempting to lay down fire from a blown-out house, a final tank shell took out the foundation and I made a sprint for safety as the ground collapsed under me.

There’s a sense of grandeur and chaos that most other multiplayer shooters don’t quite evoke; honestly, I think this is why Battlefield fans are such a picky bunch, because if they’re not getting what they want here, they’re probably not getting it many other places. On the one hand, Battlefield 6 isn’t a 1:1 replication of Battlefield 3 and 4, in part because of its more constrictive map design that results in getting shot in the back of the head a lot and also due to its overly complicated weapon upgrade system that has you fiddling with nearly indistinguishable scopes and loadouts that undermine the class system a bit (there are four classes with different gadgets and roles, but primary weapons aren’t locked to a specific class). At the same time, though, it’s far closer to the series’ roots than most other shooters out there these days.

On a different track, while I largely enjoyed my time with the beta and am planning to return to report for duty next weekend, the weirdest element of coming back to this flavor of modern military shooter after all this time is how off-putting it is to be cosplaying as a soldier in the year 2025, as a US-supported military is commiting genocide in Gaza and the war in Ukraine’s deathcount continues to soar, hitting as high as half a million. It certainly doesn’t help that the game’s single-player campaign has a tone-deaf premise, seemingly portraying America as a victim on the geopolitical stage, something seldom true, if ever, in the country’s several hundred-year-old history.

Maybe these feelings will fade somewhat in that way that can happen with multiplayer games, as the aesthetics and setup take a backseat to an increasing obsession with meta strategies, memorized map layouts, and other little freak ludic obsessions. Or maybe, my weekend with this beta will be the equivalent of when you dust off an old game, are satisfied, and then put it down after having your fill of nostalgia. I won’t make any guesses about my future trajectory with Battlefield 6 or how it will resonate with audiences; we’ll find out soon whether returning to the well is enough after all this time.

Elijah Gonzalez is an associate editor for Endless Mode. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.