If you’ve been playing videogames for quite a while, the old rivalry between Battlefield and Call of Duty should be well familiar to you by now. It started way back in 2011 with the release of Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty’s respective entry in that year where the Battlefield title posed a serious challenge to COD’s status as the reigning champion when it comes to the multiplayer shooter genre. And even though COD had managed to win by sheer number of sales worldwide, many players had concluded that Battlefield came out as a superior game overall and since then these two heavyweight FPS franchises have traded punches several times over the years.
But it seems this year could seriously turn the tide in favor of the Battlefield series as the player numbers of the recent open beta of Battlefield 6 have greatly surpassed the overall player counts of Call of Duty on Steam, indicating EA’s flagship shooter gaining a great deal of popularity among the shooter fans this year. The concurrent player numbers in the first week of Battlefield 6 beta has hit a staggering 521,079 with the second weekend (which will commence on August 14-17) expected to see even greater numbers.
And to put those impressive numbers into perspective, Call of Duty HQ, which includes both Call of Duty: Warzone and Black Ops 6, has reached 67,595 players on Steam during the weekend, with Battlefield 6 beta also managing to surpass the free-to-play shooter’s all-time peak of 491,670 concurrent players in just it’s first weekend. And when you take into account the overall console numbers as well (which haven’t been revealed so far), the player counts of Battlefield 6 beta will likely be far greater than what’s reported yet.
What makes all of this even more interesting is the fact that both Call of Duty and Battlefield will be getting new games in the same year for the first time since 2021, indicating the battle for the best shooter in fall 2025 a highly anticipated one when both franchises collide with their latest titles.
