Battlefield 6is on a rampage as its open beta attracts over 520,000 concurrent players. The game is yet to launch fully, and it’s already stomping most of the competition,Call of Dutyincluded. Mike Ybarra, former Blizzard exec, said this is a good thing—and he’s absolutely right.
According to Ybarra,BF6will “boot stomp CoD” in 2025, which should prompt Call of Duty to not be “lazy” anymore, in turn resulting in everyone getting better first-person shooters down the line. That might seem like a pretty straightforward take, but not everyone agreed with it. Lots of players, especially those favoring Call of Duty, disagreed with Ybarra’s message, while those on Battlefield’s side ran with it like their lives depended on it.
However, reality lies somewhere in the middle.
BF6 is the solution to a stale market
Call of Dutymaintains a large player base both on PC and consoles, selling millions of copies every year and topping charts across the world every time it launches. No matter what, theCoDfranchise will almost certainly never fail, and it’ll be a long, long time before we see Activision’s pride and joy roll off a cliff (if ever).
What Ybarra is implying here is thatBattlefield 6, given how popular it already is, will bash heads withCoDand, potentially, steal a bit of its market share (bothBO7andBF6launch around the same time).
Given EA and DICE’s decision to speed gameplay up a bit and lower the TTK (time-to-kill), a lot ofCoDplayers are finding comfort inBattlefield 6, particularly its smaller-scale modes like Domination and King of the Hill, which they’ll surely find familiar. Additionally, the game completely walks back most of the decisions made in2024, makingBF6more akin to4and3than newer entries in the series, opening it up to veterans to come back and, hopefully, stay.
It is a win-win situation for two groups of players who have gotten tired of both EA’s newer shooters andCall of Duty‘s yearly regurgitations, and the open beta numbers prove it.
What I hope ends up being true is thatBattlefield 6will maintain its popularity and dominance post-Oct. 10 when it fully launches, disturbing Activision hopefuls who believed they could just roll the same old dice again and rake in the millions. I mean, sure, they probably still will, but a few million less is certainly going to get some coats pulled, with the company rethinking howCoDcan survive in this new market environment.
No competition killed CoD
CoDhasn’t had a proper competitor sinceBattlefield V, and even that was a lackluster release compared to its predecessor,Battlefield 1, which is by far the bestBattlefieldgame ever made (at least, it is for me). With2042‘s horrible launch in 2022,CoDhas had free rein over the arcade shooter market, which, as we all know, saw its games get progressively worse sinceMW2, while Activision continues to chase trends and ludicrous partnerships.
Battlefield 6thus stands to not only revitalize an ailing franchise, but to revamp the shooter genre as a whole, leading to bothCall of DutyandBattlefieldbecoming bigger, better, more serious franchises with games that people actually like and love and do not whale out over.
