Battlefield 6 has 50,000 players in a server queue before beta even goes live

I still don't think it'll happen, but if there was ever a year where Battlefield could finally eat Call of Duty's lunch, it's this year. The excitement levels for Battlefield 6 are super high - at a time where Black Ops 6 lets you execute enemies with a unicorn fart while cosplaying as the alien from American Dad, FPS players are desperate for the more grounded, gritty, large-scale warfare BF6 promises to bring. To give you an idea of just how eager people are to give it a go, more than 50,000 players have been spotted sitting in a server queue for Battlefield 6's beta, which at the time of writing isn't even live yet.

If Battlefield 6 can get the series' fundamentals right (destruction, vehicular gameplay, intense gunfights, and the like) it could well earn a spot on our best FPS games list. Judging by Sam's impressions in his Battlefield 6 preview, it seems to be nailing those crucial aspects. However, it's got a reputation to shake off.

The series suffered a rare miss with Battlefield 2042, and while that game is genuinely decent these days, its embarrassing launch state left a stain. This, combined with the rise of competitors such as Delta Force and the unwavering dominance of Call of Duty, made me really concerned that there wouldn't be much hunger or pre-launch excitement for Battlefield 6. Well, I'm not worried any more. Not only was there a very positive reception to its big reveal event last week, but the anticipation for its upcoming beta is way higher than I thought it would be.

The Battlefield 6 beta is kicking off on Thursday, August 7 in a closed state - anyone who participated in the Battlefield Labs playtests, secured an invite through Twitch Drops, or nabbed a code from a giveaway (like this one!) will be able to jump in straight away. The rest of us will have to hold on until Saturday, August 9 to get a taste. Despite being invite-only and not even being playable yet, hordes of fans are currently queued up and ready to go thanks to the beta being pre-installable.

Players have been sharing screenshots of an in-game counter showing the number of players in the server queue for the Battlefield 6 beta, and the biggest number I've seen so far is 52,260. Wow. This of course takes all platforms into account, but player count data from SteamDb also paints a picture of its popularity on PC. Despite there being no playable content, a concurrent peak of over 24,000 was recorded today, August 6 on Valve's platform.

A huge influx of players is now inevitable as soon as the beta goes live, even for this invite-only period, but it remains to be seen if it will cause any technical issues or instability - if it does, we'll keep you posted on our Battlefield 6 servers guide. I'm now left wondering just how big (and potentially broken) things will get on Saturday, when the doors are opened to everyone.

To make sure you're as prepared as you can be, check out our guide to all the Battlefield 6 classes and our list of all the Battlefield 6 maps.

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We've also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.