Battlefield 6 open beta breaks Steam record with 521K players, beats Call of Duty peak

New Delhi: Battlefield 6 has kicked off its open beta with numbers that have grabbed the gaming world’s attention. Over the weekend, EA’s latest shooter pulled in a peak of 521,079 concurrent players on Steam, setting an all-time record for the franchise. The 1st two-day beta was enough to make it the highest-performing Battlefield ever on the platform.

The game’s early success comes at a time when rival shooter Call of Duty is facing a wave of negative feedback, with Battlefield 6 now holding the 18th spot in Steam’s all-time player count list. That makes it the only traditional FPS in the top 20 besides Counter-Strike, PUBG, and Apex Legends. Call of Duty, once the dominant name in the genre, sits two places lower at number 20.

The open beta’s peak of over half a million concurrent players beats every Battlefield before it. While older games in the series didn’t debut on Steam (Except Battlefield 2042), making comparisons tricky, the scale here is hard to ignore. Queues during the first hours saw as many as 250,000 players waiting to get in, with some stuck for up to 30 minutes.

Battlefield 6’s performance also stands out in streaming. Twitch viewership during the beta crossed 870,000, more than double the peak of the previous top Battlefield title, which topped out at around 350,000.

Players have credited the beta’s smooth performance, noting that it ran better on their systems than the last two Battlefield releases did at launch. EA’s approach included smaller, fragmented downloads and modest hardware requirements, making it easier for more players to jump in quickly.

The timing also worked in its favour. With Call of Duty’s latest, Black Ops 7, drawing poor early reactions, more FPS fans seem open to trying Battlefield again. Even those who usually skip the genre might have been drawn in by the buzz and the rare sight of Battlefield beating its long-time rival in player count.

Despite the strong start, past experience tempers expectations. Battlefield 2042 also enjoyed a huge beta turnout with 150,000 players but dropped sharply at launch. Whether Battlefield 6 can hold its numbers will depend on how much of the beta’s momentum carries over when the full game releases.

The official launch for Battlefield 6 is set for 10 October 2025 on PC and consoles. EA has confirmed that the second open beta weekend will take place next weekend (16-17th Aug), giving the game another shot at pulling in big numbers before release.

For now, though, Battlefield 6’s half-a-million-plus peak has set a new standard for the franchise and given its fans something they haven’t had in years: bragging rights over Call of Duty.