EA’s Battlefield 6 was the biggest game of 2025, and yet its gargantuan launch player base has largely left the multiplayer FPS game behind. While player numbers are slightly improved following the release of Season 2, many players simply have not come back.
As for why players left the game after release, there are a multitude of reasons. The lack of a server browser combined with some bizarre matchmaking quirks rubbed fans the wrong way. BF6’s absence of truly large maps, which are reportedly in the works now, was a disappointment. Additionally, the game’s incredibly stingy progression system was a nut-ache to deal with.
In an interview with Game Developer at the 2026 DICE conference, Battlefield 6 producer Alexia Christofi admitted that the game’s “meta progression” system on launch simply was not fun, and didn’t feel like it was rewarding players for investing their time into the game.
On launch, players were forced to complete specific challenges to gain enough XP to upgrade, and those challenges often forced players into specific modes. This was exacerbated by the launch of Battlefield RedSec, the game’s free Battle Royale spin-off, as challenges pushed players to play that game instead of the core Battlefield 6 experience.
“Players didn’t like feeling they were forced into specific modes,” Christofi said. “We took a step back, re-evaluated, and as we’re launching future seasons, we’ve changed our ethos a little bit to challenges and player progression in general.”
The Battlefield 6 producer explained that the game’s progression system required “a little bit of a rework”. Since launch, the team has worked to speed up progression, including reducing the amount of experience it takes to earn a Battle Pass point to unlock cosmetics and other rewards. However, the work is still ongoing to make the full experience feel more satisfying.
“Some things take a little bit more time [to fix],” the producer said. “Some things we kind of see instantly and want to change quite quickly, so we have a vigorous hot-fix patching process.
“We had stuff that we wanted to do for launch that maybe we didn’t have time for, but then we also see that feedback and we want to change existing things. Trying to get that healthy balance between the two is tough, but worthwhile.”
The producer explained that the progression of Battlefield 6 is under constant development by the game’s meta progression team, a crew split across multiple companies and multiple time zones. “There have been times when I’ve woken up in my morning, we’ve seen something, we’ve got some bugs we need to fix for the next patch, and we haven’t got around to fixing it by the evening… and then we’ve been able to hand it over to someone in LA to take that on and carry on working on that,” the producer said.
Battlefield 6 is expected to be around for a number of years with major improvements such as vehicle buffs currently in the works.
