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Recommended reading Battlefield 6's open beta is already the most popular Battlefield of all time on Steam, and the platform's 44th most-played game ever Thousands of people are so eager to blow stuff up in the Battlefield 6 beta they're idling in the main menu If you're doubting whether Battlefield 6 will be a hit, I was stuck in a 140,000 player queue at 9 am on a random Thursday to join a closed beta, twice Battlefield 6 has 2 open beta weekends this month, a release date for October, and a $70 price point after all that melodrama Battlefield 6: All the key details on EA's 'most ambitious' Battlefield yet How to access the Battlefield 6 open beta, how to preload, and when it starts EA reportedly expects Battlefield 6 to bring in 100 million players, a number that even DICE devs don't think is feasible Battlefield 6 The Battlefield 6 beta has broken Call of Duty's Steam player count record, surging past half a million concurrents Ted Litchfield 9 August 2025 This puts the BF6 beta at 18th place overall on Steam. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: EA) First spotted by Battlefield Bulletin on Twitter, Battlefield 6's open beta is doing spectacularly well on Steam: Around 500,000 concurrent players at the time of writing, down from a peak of 521,079 according to SteamDB. That puts the BF6 beta at 18th place for peak concurrents in Steam history, two spots ahead of the unified Call of Duty app's peak of 491,670 players in November 2022. Some caveats on the Call of Duty comparison: Steam concurrents never show the whole picture for multiplatform games, and even on PC, CoD's numbers are complicated by Battle.net and especially Game Pass, which assuredly blunted Black Ops 6's Steam peak last year. But this is still an insanely impressive showing for an open beta, and more supporting evidence that the recently rather one-sided CoD-Battlefield rivalry could be a real race this year. PCG FPS expert Morgan Park certainly thinks so on quality grounds, while former Blizzard president Mike Ybara seems to be rooting against his former team with prognostications in favor of Battlefield 6. Related Articles Battlefield 6's open beta is already the most popular Battlefield of all time on Steam, and the platform's 44th most-played game ever Thousands of people are so eager to blow stuff up in the Battlefield 6 beta they're idling in the main menu If you're doubting whether Battlefield 6 will be a hit, I was stuck in a 140,000 player queue at 9 am on a random Thursday to join a closed beta, twice For a more apples to apples comparison of player counts, The Battlefield 6 beta was already the most-played game in the series on Steam on its first day of availability, when it was only playable by Battlefield Labs members. It now has five times the number of players as Battlefield 2042's peak player count set in 2023, two years after launch and buoyed by its long comeback tour. You can still get in on the action this weekend, and EA will run another open beta next weekend from Thursday August 14 through Sunday August 17. EA has shared instructions on how to access the beta on its website⁠—it's another one of those Twitch stream code drop deals. Battlefield 6 will release in full on October 10, and blessedly isn't an $80 game⁠—just a $70 one. Chump change for a high roller like me. Walkin' around money. 2025 games: This year's upcoming releases Best PC games: Our all-time favorites Free PC games: Freebie fest Best FPS games: Finest gunplay Best RPGs: Grand adventures Best co-op games: Better together The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Ted Litchfield Social Links Navigation Associate Editor Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Battlefield 6's open beta is already the most popular Battlefield of all time on Steam, and the platform's 44th most-played game ever Thousands of people are so eager to blow stuff up in the Battlefield 6 beta they're idling in the main menu If you're doubting whether Battlefield 6 will be a hit, I was stuck in a 140,000 player queue at 9 am on a random Thursday to join a closed beta, twice Battlefield 6 has 2 open beta weekends this month, a release date for October, and a $70 price point after all that melodrama Battlefield 6: All the key details on EA's 'most ambitious' Battlefield yet How to access the Battlefield 6 open beta, how to preload, and when it starts Latest in FPS Battlefield 6's anti-cheat has already stopped 330,000 'attempts to cheat' in the open beta, but players are still calling out wallhackers who slip through the net The best Battlefield 6 maps so far Wildgate review — A brilliant concept that's too clever for its own good Former Blizzard president predicts Battlefield 6 is going to 'boot stomp' Black Ops 7 because Call of Duty has become 'lazy' Don't worry, Battlefield 6 is only putting bots in your matches while the training wheels are on in your 'Training Grounds' playlists I finally played Duke Nukem Forever's unfinished 2001 build, and while it probably would have been better than Gearbox's fiasco, it still wouldn't hold up today Latest in News 'Let's just kill everyone on the station:' The videogame audio log was apparently invented to avoid 'awkward' RPG dialogue trees Steam has a sale celebrating small developers, and you can get my favorite post-Balatro deckbuilder for just $2 AOL discontinues its dial-up internet, and we're just surprised they even offered it in 2025 Steam for Chromebooks is getting axed in 2026 instead of exiting its 4-year beta New report lays out Israeli military use of Microsoft services that prompted employee protests and a boycott of Xbox and Game Pass Battlefield 6's anti-cheat has already stopped 330,000 'attempts to cheat' in the open beta, but players are still calling out wallhackers who slip through the net HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES LATEST GAME REVIEWS Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC Best graphics cards in 2025: I've tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today's top cards Best gaming laptop in 2025: I've put the best of this new generation head-to-head and we have a winner Best gaming chair in 2025: I've tested a ton of gaming chairs and these are the seats I'd suggest for any PC gamer Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads Wildgate review Acer Predator GM9000 2 TB NVMe SSD review Biwin Black Opal NV7400 SSD review Fractal Design Scape review Framework Desktop PC review PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. 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