Battlefield 6 stomps Call of Duty's Steam record with 520,000 concurrent players, but EA promises it's still working on those long "entry times"

Battlefield 6 isn't just the biggest Battlefield game ever based on concurrent players, it's even stomped its biggest rival and arguably the biggest shooter series on the planet: Call of Duty. Thank goodness for some competition, eh?

During the Battlefield 6 Open Beta's peak time on Saturday night, the shooter pulled in a whopping 520,000 or so Steam players at the same time. That made it the weekend's fourth biggest game on the platform, behind only Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG, and the 22nd biggest game on the storefront of all time based on concurrent players.

What's more notable is that the Call of Duty launcher's all-time peak hit a 491,000 record almost three years ago. The gulf between CoD and Battlefield had widened so much in recent years, these numbers are a more than welcome sign that Call of Duty does, in fact, still have some competition in the FPS space, as Blizzard's former exec predicted it would.

"This is Battlefield's biggest Open Beta ever," EA announced on social media. But with droves of players flocking to the beta, the publisher also warned that "peak time is approaching and queues will be expected." Still, it's "working on entry times to the game, but appreciate your patience as you wait for your time to arrive."

"We want everyone to experience a smooth and fair Open Beta, including those currently within the game too. Thank you for your continued excitement for Battlefield 6's Open Beta," it noted.

Battlefield 6's anti-cheat system has already blocked over 330,000 bad apples, but with more flooding the FPS' Open Beta, EA says it "was not intended to be a silver bullet"