Many Battlefield fans were hoping the newest entry in the series, Battlefield 6, would be a return to form for the series. It turns out, there may have been even more of them waiting than anticipated. According to Electronic Arts, Battlefield 6 has acheived the most successful launch in franchise history.
EA said Thursday that over 7 million people picked up a copy of the game during its first three days. That figure rivals Call of Duty releases, according to analytics newsletter the Alinea Insight. One would assume any gap between them would be even smaller now than when Battlefield was last on the market, given that Call of Duty is also available to Ultimate-tier Xbox Game Pass subscribers, which would lead to decreased sales. That’s a pretty great accomplishment for the Battlefield team, given it took a couple of months to reach a similar sales figure with Battlefield 5 back in 2018 and Battlefield 2042‘s launch sales “did not meet expectations” back in 2021.
“We never take moments like this for granted, so I want to express our sincere gratitude to our global Battlefield Studios and passionate community that has helped get us to this point,” EA executive vice president Vince Zampella says in a statement. “We appreciate you joining us for Battlefield 6’s momentous launch. We have so much more to come in the weeks ahead.”
Still, it’s unclear how many of those that bought the game actually feel redeemed with the purchase, though. While reviews have been largely kind – it currently has a Metacritic score of 89 – it’s not without its flaws.
For instance, the BF6 campaign has been lambasted for losing sight of the Battlefield’s identity. While the press release for the record-breaking sales refers to it as “an exciting blockbuster single player campaign,” you have to wonder if they played the same campaign as everyone else.
Gunplay aside, the campaign just doesn’t play like a Battlefield title, according to viraltrendingcontent’s review. The multiplayer mode has received a much better response from critics and fans, but still suffers from issues. Whether it’s maps that are too small for a properly-scaled fight or challenges that seem unreasonably difficult to complete, there is plenty to be worked on by EA via patches and DLC.
That said, EA claims over 172 million matches were played on release weekend, with over 15 million hours of streaming watched by fans. Even now, a week after release, it’s the top-selling game on Steam and has the fourth-largest number of current players, with over 345,000 people fragging away at the time of this piece being written.
All that in mind, it’s hard to look at Battlefield 6’s launch as anything but a success for EA. It comes at a time when the company surely thinks it could use a rather public win. It was only a couple of weeks ago that EA announced plans to be acquired by a consortium that includes Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, as the country continues growing its foothold in gaming.
Now, at least for today, EA has something else to talk about while also preparing for the release of the game’s season 1 content. The first season of Battlefield 6’s additional content drops Oct. 28 and includes a new map, along with a new 4v4 match type.
