Battlefield 6 beta peaks at 326K players, now Steam's 39th most-played game ever

[midian182]

In brief: EA has some wildly ambitious goals for Battlefield 6, forecasting player figures that most people believed were highly unrealistic. However, numbers for the just-opened beta suggest that the FPS is off to a good start: it is already the 39th most-played game of all time on Steam.

It was looking positive for Battlefield 6 and EA when almost 250,000 people were waiting in the queue for the early access beta.

Despite only being open a few hours, the beta has already reached a concurrent-player peak of 326,069, according to SteamDB. At the time of writing, the number of players is just under that figure, so it will likely be surpassed at some point.

Battlefield 6's player count means it is already the 39th most-played game ever on Steam (based on concurrent-player peaks). It currently sits just below Starfield, which had a peak of 330,723, surprisingly.

This also means that Battlefield 6's beta is the most-played Battlefield game on Steam ever – though EA only returned to Valve's platform in 2020. For comparison, Battlefield 2042's open beta, the franchise's second most-played entry on Steam, peaked at 156,655 concurrent players, while the full game managed to reach 107,376.

Prior to the beta starting, Dice posted on the Battlefield Comms X account that it was using queues to protect the player experience and ensure servers remain stable. It added that the impact was expected to be minimal, but people are obviously enduring long waits to play. As such, Dice says it is now working on a substantial increase in server capacity to reduce times in queues.

A quick note about queues and Early Access / Open Beta.

Since this is Battlefield's biggest Open Beta ever, we're putting in the work to ensure that players have the best possible experience and servers remain stable.

To support this, we will use queues to protect the player…

– Battlefield Comms (@BattlefieldComm) August 7, 2025

EA said it is aiming for 100 million players with Battlefield 6, more than three times Battlefield 1's reported peak of around 30 million players.

If you want to know more about Battlefield 6, including the full system requirements and multiplayer details, check out this article.

It's also been confirmed that the game will feature an anti-cheat system requiring players to enable Secure Boot on their Windows PCs. This effectively shuts out Linux users and those with older machines, and also explains why the game isn't compatible with the Steam Deck.

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Battlefield 6 beta peaks at 326K players, now Steam's 39th most-played game ever

 

[m4a4]

Well, from everything I've heard and seen, it sounds like they're actually listening to actual gamers and fans of the series this time around. Not pandering to the mythical modern audience.

A little sad that something so obvious is a reason for the hype, but it is nice to see. I just hope the higher ups get that message...

Also, I hope they don't screw up monetization. An easy way to lose all hype and good will.

 

[VitalyT]

Most of who is the current and ex-military personal, 'cos they don't get enough real action, LOL, sitting in their bunkers and home basements, reminiscing about good old days of murder and mayhem.

 

[AnilD]

326k concurrent players is impressive until you remember EA wants 100 million. That’s like selling out a concert and then realizing your venue is Earth.

 

[toooooot]

326k concurrent players is impressive until you remember EA wants 100 million. That’s like selling out a concert and then realizing your venue is Earth.

I do not believe they were serious. It sounded like something intended for executives.

 

[Axiarus]

Thats neat. Required TMP 2.0 means no buy from me. Do I have TPM 2.0 on my mobo? Yes. Am I enabling it for one game? No.

 

[Linoleum77]

326k concurrent players is impressive until you remember EA wants 100 million. That’s like selling out a concert and then realizing your venue is Earth.

Keep in mind, these numbers reflect just one of three platforms selling the game—and access is gated behind beta registration. That makes the performance genuinely impressive.

 

[whateversa]

The stats should be much higher on Saturday or Sunday when anyone is able to play the open beta. I did play last night and I never waited very long.

I do think too many battlefield players are stuck in the past and not willing to try new things and moaned about BF2042 without really giving it a chance - why do you want a new game then if you just want the old game? They also moaned about BF5 having a female in the trailer - which felt fresh/new considering that has not happened in 20+ years of Battlefield games. I really hope DICE is not going to let these moaners leave Battlefield games stuck in the past. I've been playing BF games for 20+ years and BF2042 really grew on me as there were so many different ways to play compared to older BF games and allowing anyone to make their own server and how configurable the bots were. Yes 2042 launch was full of bugs - that was quite bad...and they fixed it.

 

[whateversa]

326k concurrent players is impressive until you remember EA wants 100 million. That’s like selling out a concert and then realizing your venue is Earth.

It is considering that it was not an open beta yet.

 

[lonetac]

I had a good time, BF is back baby!

And yeah, thats one platform on a Wed night, thats damn impressive.

 

[Dr Roboto]

The full demo/trial does not open until this weekend. So, the number of players is limited and you must get a pre-access key to play.

Gave it a spin last night. Took forever to get it running. Requires secure boot and the latest Nvidia drivers. Wait for download, waste a bunch of time to get secure boot working correctly, install nvidia drivers, reboot, then had to figure out how to get a pre-access key. I feel like it took me well over an hour from the moment I clicked on download until I got to play.

I am getting petty old for this kind of stuff. I loved Battlefield 1942. The one map I played last night was fun I guess. Things seemed pretty even without any massive imbalance issues or glitches. I played for a few hours. I liked the class system and it did not take long to upgrade a few weapons. Play was fast and frantic. It just really felt like a rehashed version of COD to me. Fun but I am not sure it is $80 of fun.

Graphics are good and doesn't need a lot of GPU to get good frame rates. I have a 3070 Ti and had no issues running almost full graphics on an ultrawide monitor. The only issue I had was the 8GB limitation of my card It turned out to not be an issue when playing.