Battlefield 6 open beta is already Steam's most popular Battlefield game with a peak of 330,000+ concurrent players, doubling the record of the 2042 beta and tripling 2042 itself in just hours
And this is just the start

If the thousands of people sitting in the menu of Battlefield 6's open beta before it even became playable didn't give it away, the upcoming FPS is looking rather popular. So popular, in fact, that now that the beta's doors have finally opened, it already has the highest concurrent player peak out of any other game in the series on Steam.
As spotted by PC Gamer, at the time of writing, Battlefield 6's open beta has a concurrent player peak of 334,549 according to SteamDB. I say "open," but currently, the beta is actually in early access, and although you can watch Battlefield 6 streamers on Twitch to get access to the Battlefield 6 beta yourself (assuming you hadn't met the previous requirements), I still imagine that slight complication could mean the number might surge further when things become open to everyone on August 9.
To put it into perspective, the Battlefield 6 beta has already more than doubled the Steam peak for Battlefield 2042's beta – which saw 156,665 concurrent players at the time – and more than tripled the concurrent player peak of 2042's full release, which capped at 107,376. Its current peak also places it at number 38 on SteamDB's overall "most played games" chart, surpassing the likes of Elden Ring: Nightreign, Starfield, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and more.
The Battlefield 6 open beta is head and shoulders above every other Battlefield game on Steam, too, although as PC Gamer points out, 2042 is the only modern Battlefield game to release on Steam on its actual launch date.
Others, like Battlefield 5 and 4, returned to the storefront in 2020, years after their respective releases. As such, it's slightly unfair to compare them as closely, but that's not to downplay the beta reception we're looking at right now. Who knows how much those numbers are going to grow in the coming days?
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I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.
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