"CoD won't be lazy anymore": Ex Blizzard boss predicts a beating for Call of Duty at the hands of Battlefield 6, says Activision's FPS "has gone downhill for years"

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"We'll all get better FPS games for it," says Mike Ybarra

A close up of a man holding a gun during the reveal for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.
(Image credit: Activision)

Former Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra thinks Battlefield 6 "will boot stomp" Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 this year, which he reckons will be a great outcome for FPS games as a whole.

Battlefield 6's open beta kicked off yesterday, opening its doors to a peak of 334,549 concurrent players on Steam, and promptly becoming the most popular Battlefield game on the platform by an enormous margin. Needless to say, the full game is already shaping up to be a major hit, two months before its launch, and the ex-Blizzard president thinks it's going to blow Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 out of the water.

Whether this will actually happen remains to be seen, but we already know a couple of ways in which Battlefield 6 has addressed the concerns Ybarra mentions. It has a surprisingly compact file size, with Steam listing 55GB as the minimum amount of storage required to install it (seemingly helped by the option to install components like single-player and multiplayer separately).

As for cosmetics, the devs have stressed that it was "really important" to the team for skins to "feel grounded" and "authentic to the franchise." That means that – unless any exceptions are made later down the line – we can expect Battlefield 6 to avoid following in the footsteps of CoD with its wild crossovers and brightly colored outfits.

While Battlefield 6 is set to launch on October 10, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 still has a vague 2025 release window. We'll just have to wait and see how the two compare in the coming months.

Be sure to check out our guide on how to access the Battlefield 6 beta while you're here.

Catherine Lewis
Catherine Lewis
Deputy News Editor

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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