Battlefield 6 Breaks Records With Biggest Launch In Series History

It would seem that we are truly so back, Battlefield fans, as Electronic Arts has just announced that Battlefield 6 has “shattered” several of the franchise’s long-standing sales and player engagement records.

The Battlefield series has been in somewhat of a slump during the last decade. While the fanbase can’t quite decide if they love or loathe the likes of Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V, it’s more than fair to say that Battlefield 2042 didn’t live up to the standards that the series had set, and the sales numbers faltered as a result.

While the exact total sales numbers for Battlefield 2042 haven’t been revealed, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson outright stated that the game “did not meet expectations” during an investors call meeting back in 2022, in spite of the fact that a reported 4.3 million people purchased the title during its opening week.

However, according to a blog post on EA’s official site, things are looking up where Battlefield 6 is concerned.

There’s a lot of vague statements being thrown around here, but there are a couple of specifics we can take from EA’s statement.

Firstly, the game has sold "over 7 million copies and counting" in its first three days of release, which EA states us "the biggest opening ever in the storied Battlefield franchise”, and that “over 172 million” online matches have been played since the game dropped.

“Battlefield 6 was built with our fans. From the initial concept through to the implementation of Battlefield Labs and into the record-shattering Open Beta we have been obsessed with player feedback”, Byron Beede, General Manager of Battlefield, revealed.

“Together, with our players we’ve had a singular goal: to craft the best Battlefield ever. And this is just the beginning - our first season of new content is just 12 days away.”

Interestingly, this may indeed mean that Battlefield has beaten its main competitor, Call of Duty, in the online arms race– although “may” is the operative word here, because it’s strangely difficult to discern how well the latest Call of Duty game has performed.

Both Activision and Microsoft haven’t exactly been forthcoming about Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s sales numbers, which many have attributed to the game’s day one release on Xbox Game Pass.

Of course this doesn’t mean that Battlefield 6 is suddenly far more popular than Call of Duty, but rather that its outright sales numbers (opposed to its total player count) are much higher. Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how Battlefield 6’s comeback will affect the ongoing Battlefield/CoD rivalry moving forward.