First Impressions And Hardware Performance

Earlier this month, EA ran an early access and open beta for its new Battlefield 6 title, which is due to launch October 10, 2025. We’ve already seen trailers for the game, as well as videos of influencers playing the multiplayer alpha version with much excitement. This month, the company gave details about new maps, game modes and system requirements. Keep in mind that the game will be simultaneously launched on PC, Xbox and PS5. That said, I believe that the best experience and the most fun will be had on PC.

System Requirements For Playing Battlefield 6

EA’s minimum system requirements include Windows 10 and DirectX 12 support with an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel Core i5-8400. While 16GB of RAM is both the minimum and recommended spec, I would say that you’re probably better off going for 32GB if you’re outfitting a PC to play this game. The minimum GPU specs require an AMD Radeon 5600 XT 6GB or an Nvidia RTX 2060. This is pretty good for gamers, considering that the spec goes back three generations — so even if you don’t have a brand-new PC, you’ll still be able to run this game. There are no minimum requirements for SSD, but there is a storage requirement of 55GB for the multiplayer version and 80GB for the full game with multiplayer and campaign. This is quite efficient when you consider that many games crack the 100GB mark, for example COD’s Warzone, which requires 125GB without even having a single player installed.

That said, the recommended specs are a bit higher-end. On the CPU side, you’re looking at an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or an Intel Core i7-10700. On the GPU side, it’s an AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT or Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti. It’s also important that the minimum spec is probably for 1080P, while the recommended spec is likely for 1080P or 1440P gaming. If you want to play Battlefield 6 in 4K, you’ll probably need a much beefier GPU. Speaking of GPUs, the game will support all the upscaling features from all the various GPU vendors, including DLSS, FSR and XeSS. Early reports have the game running in the range of 170 to 250 FPS at 1440P with DLSS set to “quality” mode while running on an Nvidia RTX 4090.

On console, Battlefield 6 will run at a minimum 60 FPS on both Xbox and PS5, and up to 60 or 120 FPS on PS5 Pro. This points to the game being very well optimized — as we’re already seeing from the PC specs — and might mean that the game has been polished significantly well before the beta with the new Battlefield Labs playtests. Considering that previous Battlefield games have struggled due to poor optimizations and bugs, it really does seem like EA has finally turned the page for the franchise with Battlefield Labs. It’s also worth noting that Intel has already partnered with EA on a gaming bundle ($99) with Intel CPUs and GPUs that includes the free Phantom Edition between August 25 and September 14 at 200 select retailers around the globe.

Skins, But Tasteful?

Battlefield 6 may finally be the game that gives its fans exactly what they want and doesn’t try to follow Fortnite and Call of Duty into a skin war. Some context: skins have become a way for games to monetize their gamer base, usually through a free-to-play scheme where aesthetic skins for users’ guns or in-game avatars more than pay for the game’s development and upkeep. This has driven many other games into a “war of skins,” diluting the game experience into a comical battle between, for example, Lionel Messi and Beavis from Beavis and Butthead. While Battlefield 6 will have skins, the developers have made it abundantly clear that in-game skins will stay true to the franchise. I take this to mean mostly aesthetic changes to the clothes and kits that soldiers will wear, but players’ avatars will predominantly still appear as solders on the battlefield, unlike in Fortnite and Call of Duty.

Previous Battlefield releases have simply not understood what the genre is about, and sales have been tepid. But I believe that Battlefield 6 could bring the franchise back on track — and maybe even boost PC gaming sales for the first time in many generations of games. Historically, whenever a Battlefield release does well, it creates lots of demand for new PC gaming hardware, as more people want to play with friends and crank up the gaming experience. I’m an example of this: back in high school, the first PC I ever built with my own money (previous PCs were gifts) was built to play Battlefield 2, and I have extremely fond memories of playing that game with friends. It was also my first experience with the Logitech G series of gaming peripherals, which had some software integrations with Battlefield.

The Battlefield 6 Early-Access Experience

The early access period came during the weekend before the two beta weekends. EA was smart enough to allow people to preload the game if they had early access codes from preordering the game or from watching Twitch streams. By letting people preload the beta, EA ensured that most of the server load for the beta would be people who are playing the game rather than those trying to download the game. This is a savvy move for game vendors, because it typically improves network performance and latency, and generally makes the overall gaming experience better for everyone. The early access beta was also limited to two out of the nine maps in the final version of the game. The three game modes being tested were Conquest, Breakthrough and Domination.

The open beta tested five different maps and many different game modes across the two weekends. This will hopefully allow EA’s DICE unit, which develops Battlefield, to dial in the maps, weapons and classes.

When the early access launch rolled around at 1 a.m. Pacific Time on August 7, the game became available to early access users with codes. This created a huge 270,000-user queue, which upset some users. I did not stay up that late to play, but later on August 7 I was able to get in some games. I joined the queue at 4,160 users, which took all of 10 seconds to clear before I was able to play. I didn’t hit the queue again until 11 p.m. that day, which might have been because EA dialed down the servers later at night.

The gameplay was extremely fast-paced, with a relatively quick time to kill and very smooth frame rate — while also looking fantastic on my RTX 5090 desktop. The game supports supersampling and frame generation, but even with the game set to high presets and without any upscaling or frame generation it was already hitting about 150 FPS at 4K. It’s clear that this game is highly optimized, and there’s plenty of room for higher FPS thanks to all the additional upscalers and frame generators. One weird thing I noticed was that the game had vertical sync turned on by default, which caps your frame rate at 60 to prevent tearing and disables adaptive sync. So, you want to make sure to turn that off if you have a monitor equipped with FreeSync or G-Sync.

I found myself experimenting with all four player classes (Assault, Support, Engineer and Recon) and really enjoyed finding out that there is no reviving users who have been headshot by a sniper. I also realized that this game limits the player’s ammo, preventing a “one-man army” scenario and requiring players to work together and resupply one another. As in previous versions of the game, RPGs are once again borderline useless on soldiers outside of direct hits and normally do real damage only to vehicles. Shotguns are absolutely one-shot kills at close range, and because of the limited ammo in the Assault class I found myself using the shotgun way more than in any other previous version of Battlefield. But I have a feeling that EA will nerf (weaken) it in the final release.

Weapons customization is still progression-based, and I haven’t had much time to poke around in it, but I believe that it will make shooting lots of weapons feel better than they do right now. Speaking of feel, I did manage to run into a few beta bugs, including one where my weapons just disappeared and all I had was crosshairs. I also witnessed a few graphical glitches here and there, but for a beta this game ran extremely smoothly and had minimal bugs.

Hopefully, EA can also figure out how to better unify Steam and EA app users because there’s no easy social bridge between them right now. In other words, if my friends are playing on Steam while I’m playing on the EA app, I have no easy way of forming a party with them in-game right now. To fix this, users have to ask their friends on Steam to link their Steam accounts to the EA app so that they can find each other in-game. After the first beta weekend, I completely uninstalled the EA app and reinstalled on Steam, which made for a much better gaming experience.

Final Thoughts On The Battlefield Franchise

As a lifelong Battlefield fan, this may be the smoothest launch for the franchise I’ve seen since Battlefield 2, which came out 20 years ago. I know that we still have to wait until October to fully assess the state of the game, but I can’t remember the last time a beta played like a gold release. To be candid, most Battlefield games have launched feeling like betas, which I think is part of why the franchise has suffered. I’m grateful that Battlefield 6 has bucked that trend, and I suspect that vendors in the PC gaming industry will soon be grateful for it, too.

Moor Insights & Strategy provides or has provided paid services to technology companies, like all tech industry research and analyst firms. These services include research, analysis, advising, consulting, benchmarking, acquisition matchmaking and video and speaking sponsorships. Of the companies mentioned in this article, Moor Insights & Strategy currently has (or has had) a paid business relationship with AMD, Intel and Nvidia.