Battlefield 6's new beta already has 9,000 Steam 'players,' days before launch

Battlefield 6 may just be the most important game in the series' 23-year history, and its first chance to properly woo FPS fans is almost here. Sure, it got a flashy reveal event with a bunch of streamers playing the game. But it's not the same as you and your mates getting hands-on yourself, and that's exactly what its beta is about to deliver. While it doesn't kick off for a few days yet, it's just been made available to pre-install. Such is the fervor for Battlefield 6, it's already got an impressive player count on Steam, even without the beta going live.

The Battlefield 6 beta actually begins on Thursday, August 7, when those with early access privileges will be able to give it a spin. Then, from August 9-11 and August 14-17, it's open to absolutely everyone. It's a huge statement of intent from Battlefield Studios - the name given to the newly formed collective of EA studios DICE, Ripple Effect, Criterion, and Motive - and will aim to prove that the underwhelming, buggy launch of Battlefield 2042 won't be repeated in Battlefield 6. There's a lot of anticipation for it, and there's a very real chance it could be one of the best FPS games of the decade if it can live up to the likes of Battlefield 1, 3, and 4.

Even though things don't kick off for another three days, per the time of writing, you can actually download, install, and open up the Battlefield 6 beta right now. Doing so will give you access to the main menu, where you can vibe along to the new theme music and also start messing around with settings.

There's sadly no firing range or tutorial area that you can access yet to test these settings, but if you know you like a higher sensitivity or certain keybinds, you can get ahead of the game and roughly set things up to how you've had in past Battlefield games or other first-person shooters.

Several thousand eager fans on Steam (and no doubt scores more on other platforms) are already doing this - in fact, there were almost as many people in the Battlefield 6 beta's menu than there were playing Battlefield 2042 on Valve's platform. Without any content being available, the beta achieved a peak player count today of over 9,000 people.

I'm intrigued to see just how high that player count gets once the beta actually kicks off. It may be modest for those first two days of early access, but I'm estimating we'll see a peak of at least 150,000 on Steam when it opens up to everyone. We'll see if that prediction comes true, but one thing's for sure, I'll be there putting its maps and modes through their paces.

For more, check out our guides on the Battlefield 6 classes and all the Battlefield 6 weapons we know about right now.

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