EA wants 100 million players for Battlefield 6

The Battlefield franchise, famed for its combined-arms multiplayer PvP & cinematic moments, has seen its share of award winning success’ such as Battlefield 3, Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V. The development of its newest title Battlefield 6 is approaching the final stretch to release. With Battlefield Labs showing gameplay reflecting a gritty, realistic, modern day setting inspired by Battlefield 3; fans are hyped, but they remain skeptical.

History Warrants Fan Skepticism

The franchise has also seen some rough releases; namely their latest installment Battlefield 2042– which was met with very heavy criticism at launch. The game achieved a META critic score of 68 and a META player score of 2.3; resulting in EA accounting for a $100m hit to their revenue that quarter of 2022, due to the overwhelming underperformance at release.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the game,

“Did not meet expectations”

Competitors like Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite were dominating the player space then and still are now. EA executives believe that with the right focus and investment the newest Battlefield installment has what it takes to go head-to-head with these titans of the industry.

The 100 Million Player Plan

Despite their previous release, a target of 100 million players is set for Battlefield 6.
This target includes players at post-launch too.

To help achieve this astronomical goal, the executive leadership at EA reckon a revision is needed in the monetization model of Battlefield. Converting partially from a premium game to a free-to-play game- similar to the ruling competition -this allows a vast amount of new & old players access parts of the game without having to open their wallets.

The plan is to create 2 free-to-play modes for all players: a Battle Royale mode and an original mode named Gauntlet. Premium content will see the return of a 6 hour single-player campaign, classic Battlefield multiplayer modes and of the beloved Battlefield Portal.

The budget was set initially at $400m back in 2023, but reports suggest it is now surpassed that budget in 2025. EA executives believe with enough investment, the game is bound to compete with its competition.

Internal concerns

The initial studio developing the single-player campaign Ridgeline Games, was shut down by EA in early 2024. This had severely delayed development and stunted plans for a longer campaign. As of Spring 2025 development on the campaign was 2 years behind schedule as it was the only game mode that wasn’t ready for Alpha- despite being over a year past the initial project Alpha tests.

Ambitious as 100 million players is, members in studios working on Battlefield 6 have expressed there are,

“very few people…”

that believe the 100 million player target was attainable. Even the franchise’s best seller, Battlefield 1 had achieved 21 million players through purchases, with another 10 million players through access passes like EA play or Xbox Gamepass.

“Obviously, Battlefield has never achieved those numbers before,”

Stated an Employee at EA. Another employee added that,

“It’s important to understand that over about that same period, [Battlefield] 2042 had only gotten 22 million…”

The games exact release date is still unknown, but speculation among the community has pitched release between November 2025 to the end of March 2026. However, the potential for delays and push-backs are reasonably high, given the reported state of Battlefield 6’s single-player campaign and many previous installments have track records of being very unstable at release.