Battlefield 6 is currently available for players to try in an early access, semi-closed beta form, which is only semi-closed because technically anyone could have acquired a code through specific channels, but only those with a code can jump into the beta today and tomorrow before it opens to the rest of the non-code-having public on August 9-10 and then again next weekend from August 14-17.
And even in that confusing, not entirely closed, yet not entirely open form, hundreds of thousands of players have jumped through every necessary hoop to play Battlefield 6 as soon as possible, with today's kick-off of the beta already seeing concurrent player numbers on Steam alone surpass the all-time high concurrent player count of Battlefield 2042.
We expected Battlefield 6's beta numbers to be high, since servers were already starting to fill up yesterday, but no one thought they'd necessarily be this high. Per SteamDB, Battlefield 2042's highest concurrent player count on Steam only reached 107,376 players, a mark reached two years after it launched, and beating out its launch concurrent player numbers by about 2,000 players.
The Battlefield 6 beta, once again according to SteamDB, has already reached a peak of 334,549 concurrent players. At the time of this writing, there are 303,222 players in the beta on Steam.
It's all a clear sign that there are hundreds of thousands who were hungry for a new Battlefield game that at least looks like it has the chance of capturing the same attention and hold the series once had on the shooter genre.
It's a great start for a game that EA has put so much behind, with four studios all working together on various aspects of Battlefield 6 to ensure that it gets the best chance at being the comeback-kid the series and EA desperately needs it to be.
Of course, the real test will come when the game actually launches later this year in October, and if its launch can not only repeat, but beat these numbers - and then sustain them for longer than a day.
If you're not able to check out the beta this weekend but want to find out more about how Battlefield 6 plays, then you can check out Wccftech's Kai Tatsumoto's impressions of the game, as Kai got the try it out last week during the multiplayer reveal event EA hosted.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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