Battlefield 6, which has not yet been officially announced, promises to be one of the most ambitious games in Electronic Arts’ history. According to reports heard by Ars Technica, the company’s leadership even believes that the title has the potential to reach 100 million players . However, some issues may prevent this from happening.
The first of these, obviously, comes from the fact that this astronomical number is difficult to achieve except for the biggest hits on the market. Fortnite, for example, has approximately 30 million daily players, reaching the mark of 110 million monthly active users.
The other problem that Battlefield 6 is likely to face is related to its development. According to Ars Technica, the game’s budget has already exceeded $400 million , and yet some of its core systems have yet to be defined . In addition, the campaign has made little progress and still needs a lot of attention.
Battlefield 6 may suffer from unrealistic expectations
According to the report, Electronic Arts expects to reach 100 million players when considering both the game’s launch and the months that follow. However, employees at the company itself say that management’s expectations are simply unrealistic.
“ Battlefield has obviously never reached that number before ,” one employee said anonymously. “ It’s important to understand that during the same period, 2042 only managed 22 million .” Even at the height of the series’ popularity, the developers claim that it only reached just over 30 million players for a single installment .
To achieve this astronomical result, the company intends to invest in a Battle Royale mode that will be distributed for free. However, in order to achieve the company’s estimates, it will not be enough for the mode to be good — it will have to be able to steal the audience from several other games.
Not even DICE believes in a success of this level
According to Ars Technica’s sources, this isn’t something many DICE employees believe is possible. Looking at the market realistically, they know that even if the new Battlefield is good, it’s going to be difficult for there to be enough appetite in the market for a shooter to quickly build a massive audience.
The developer’s leadership has been betting a lot of its chips on the project, which is being guided by Vince Zampella and involves several studios. Despite promises that the game will be officially revealed soon, the company has not yet announced a specific date for this to happen.
