Battlefield 6 finally launches tomorrow, October 10, after what feels like an eternity of waiting since the second open beta concluded on August 17.
Speaking of the open beta, remember the 40,000 players waiting in the game's beta menu screen days before it officially opened? Or the 850,000+ Twitch viewers desperate to get a glimpse of DICE's latest creation?
The 3 worst Battlefield launches of all time
You might have a different top three list than my picks here, but I think we can all agree that these Battlefield games had a dismal launch.
3. Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3 has become something of a legend in 2025, with many longtime Battlefield players saying they want a return to its style of gameplay.
It's been long enough — Battlefield 3 launched in 2011 on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 — that most people forget the strife it caused in the initial weeks and months.
There were some truly severe server issues that hit as soon as the game launched, and worse, many of these issues persisted for weeks if not months. A lot of players simply gave up trying to get into a match to wait for a fix.
Battlefield 3 likewise suffered from major bugs that resulted in crashes, freezes, and server disconnections, further worsening the launch situation. To top it all off, PunkBuster's anti-cheat on PC had a tendency to boot legit players once they'd actually made it into a match.
The third spot here was a toss-up between Battlefield 3 and Battlefield V. While the latter certainly had its share of launch bugs and glitches, I'd say the biggest issues with the World War 2-era shooter had more to do with content (or lack thereof) and the attempted shoehorning of an unwanted battle royale.
Yeah ... anyone else remember Firestorm?
2. Battlefield 4
Battlefield 4 remains the first-person shooter I turn to when I want some large-scale modern warfare action, but in 2013, when it first launched, the game arrived in a poor state.
Sure, DICE was able to iron out the kinks in the weeks, months, and years after launch to make Battlefield 4 one of the most popular entries in the series.
That makes it easier to forget the extensive list of bugs that came with the day-one versions across consoles and PC, as well as horrible disconnection issues, instability, rubber-banding and other netcode problems, sound loops, dropped matches, and complete game file corruptions.
It was so bad that DICE turned its attention fully to fixing the mountain of issues before working again on any future expansion content. And even when expansions began to launch, many of the same issues cropped up before being fixed again.
1. Battlefield 2042
Is it any surprise that Battlefield 2042 is at the top of the list of worst Battlefield launches ever? Launched in 2021, Battlefield 2042 remains to this day a title that many veterans of the series would rather forget.
Originally created as a battle royale to compete with Call of Duty's enormous Warzone hit, Battlefield 2042 eventually changed course to become a more standard shooter. This, of course, led to a fractured vision that didn't feel much like Battlefield at all.
At launch, Battlefield 2042 was a disaster. Maps were poorly designed, the UI was awful (there was no scoreboard until much later in the game's life), there was no voice chat or server browser, and there was a severe lack of content to keep players engaged.
And that's before mentioning any of the specific launch issues, including an enormous list of bugs and glitches that seriously impacted players (and continue to do so today).
Will Battlefield 6's launch go smoothly? Here's a reason to believe so.
Battlefield 6's lead producer, David Sirland, believes tomorrow's launch will be different. I'm talking about a comment Sirland recently made on X, responding to a question from a fan.
Should be! We are planning for that of course, and open beta helped gauge the interest as wellOctober 5, 2025
Asked if the Battlefield 6 servers are ready for Friday, Sirland answered, "Should be!"
That's not exactly concrete proof, but Sirland notes that the open beta and its massive appeal have helped DICE gauge interest. Hopefully, that means DICE and EA will have enough servers ready to go for the influx of players at Battlefield 6's launch.
Considering the Battlefield 6 open beta peaked at about 496,000 players on Steam alone, I'm giving the servers a 50/50 chance of keeping up. As for the state of the actual game, the polished open beta is giving me hope that Battlefield 6 arrives without any major bugs or glitches. We'll all find out tomorrow.
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