Perhaps to the surprise of nobody, Battlefield 6 has exploded onto the scene with its beta.
Even before the servers went live, tens of thousands of people were already queued up in the main menu, waiting. Now that the beta is finally here, Battlefield 6 is off to an undeniably strong start.
Let’s just hope that momentum holds, especially heading into the weekend, when we’ll likely see even bigger numbers.
Steam and Twitch number show massive demand for Battlefield 6
Unsurprisingly, Battlefield 6’s beta is off to a roaring start. Players were met with queues just to get in, and on Steam alone, over 334,000 people were playing concurrently.
It’s an impressive feat that completely overshadows the last release, Battlefield 2042, which peaked at just over 100,000 concurrent players during its official launch.
For those who aren’t playing the beta, many instead turned to Twitch, the streaming platform where people watch others play live.
While I was already impressed by the 330k players on Steam, Twitch viewership has soared past 856,000 peak viewers, more than double Battlefield 2042’s all-time high of 346,000
It’s an achievement by every metric, and I’m sure DICE and EA (Electronic Arts) are hoping it’s a sign of what’s going to come when the game launches October 10, 2025.
Whether that momentum will last remains to be seen, but for now, DICE seems to be doing everything right, and players are clearly having a blast.
EA Account site crashes during beta rush
There have been multiple reports online that the EA Account site has been down during the Battlefield 6 beta, with DownDetector showing a noticeable spike in user complaints.
Fortunately, players could still redeem their Battlefield 6 early access codes, so it wasn’t a total outage. However, this did seem to prevent people from linking their EA Account with Twitch, meaning those users couldn’t earn and/or claim rewards for watching Battlefield 6 streams.
There were also potential reports of issues when trying to link Steam, Xbox, or PlayStation accounts — something that may have affected access to the beta itself.
It’s yet another sign of just how much demand Battlefield 6 is seeing right now, with people clambering to redeem Twitch rewards.
Early signs point up to a major comeback for Battlefield
Fortunately, DICE has confirmed it will be increasing server capacity to accommodate more players across all platforms. Battlefield 6 also supports crossplay, which can be toggled on or off depending on your preference.
So far, people seem to be genuinely enjoying the game. For the first weekend of the beta, engagement has remained consistently high, with seemingly long play sessions and only minor dips in concurrent players on Steam.
Just recently, high-ups at Activision commented on whether they were concerned about Battlefield 6. At the time, they reportedly stated that Call of Duty is “too big to fail”. These comments were made before the beta took off.
It might just be worth paying attention to Battlefield now amid its successful beta.
In my view, competition in this space is always a good thing, and Call of Duty — as dominant as it has been — could absolutely benefit from some pressure. Whether Battlefield is the franchise to do it remains to be seen, but early signs are very promising.
The Battlefield 6 beta runs August 7-8 and August 9-10, with the final beta weekend scheduled for August 14-17, 2025, on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
If you’re planning to play on PC, make sure your system meets the minimum requirements, and double-check that Secure Boot is enabled, as it’s required for the game’s kernel-level anti-cheat.
