Electronic Arts can start rubbing its hands together, because the Battlefield 6 beta is enjoying great results — even though 330,000 cheaters have already been banned.

According to SteamDB, 521,079 players were in the Battlefield 6 open beta simultaneously at peak times, performing extremely well on Steam. This puts the Battlefield 6 beta in 18th place in Steam history for concurrent players, surpassing Call of Duty’s unified app peak of 491,670 players from November 2022 by two places. However, a few things should be noted when comparing Call of Duty with DICE’s upcoming game.

Steam’s concurrent player numbers never provide a full picture for multiplatform titles, and even on PC, Call of Duty’s figures are complicated by Battle.net and, in particular, Game Pass, which certainly dampened Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s peak on Steam last year. Nevertheless, it’s an impressive result for an open beta and further proof that the recently one-sided Call of Duty–Battlefield rivalry could be competitive again this year — something we haven’t seen in a decade (since Battlefield 4).

The Battlefield 6 beta was already the franchise’s most popular game on Steam on day one, when only Battlefield Labs members could play it. It now has five times more players than Battlefield 2042 had in 2023, two years after its launch, and its long comeback tour has contributed to that growth. You can still jump in this weekend, and Electronic Arts will launch another open beta from August 14 to 17.

The publisher has shared on its website how to access the beta: it’s one of those Twitch stream code promotions. Battlefield 6 launches on October 10, and fortunately it won’t be an $80 game — it will be $70 instead.

Source: PCGamer, SteamDB, SteamDB, Electronic Arts