EA is reportedly betting the farm on a Battlefield 6 battle royale mode modeled after Call of Duty: Warzone

The story of the yet-to-be-titled Battlefield 6 has so far focused on a series of promising playtests. DICE is all-in on its mission statement to return to the good ol' days of Battlefield 3 and 4: a grittier art style, more destruction, and no operators.

Meanwhile, EA is focused on making Battlefield as popular as Call of Duty. Per a recent Ars Technica report, EA expects Battlefield 6 to bring in 100 million players, a figure that internal DICE devs don't believe is possible.

How EA plans to achieve that metric is coming into focus: A rumored battle royale mode that won't just serve as a centerpiece of the Battlefield 6 package, but will also mimic Activision's business model with Call of Duty: Warzone.

The plan, per Ars Technica's sources, is to offer Battlefield 6's battle royale mode for free while the rest of it (presumably traditional team-based modes and campaign) will be premium. There's obvious merit to the strategy—it was Warzone's explosive popularity at the start of the pandemic that catapulted Call of Duty into an even bigger deal than it already was—but devs and fans alike are skeptical that Battlefield's second attempt at battle royale can hoover up players who've been entrenched in Warzone's ecosystem for five years.

Got copyright strike propbably from EA on the Battle Royale post. from r/Battlefield

Assets datamined from the Battlefield Labs playtests support the existence of a battle royale mode. A video supposedly showing an intro cinematic of helicopters deploying players onto a map was removed from Reddit last month. Concept art that appeared online around the same time is consistent with the art style—soldiers grabbing loot, jumping out of helicopters, and parachuting to hot spots.

The Ars Technica report also references a mode called Gauntlet, a name that's previously come up in leaks. The word is that Gauntlet repurposes the battle royale map to pit small squads against each other in an elimination-type format (conceptually, it sounds similar to The Finals' signature Cashout mode).

It's reasonable to think launching a battle royale in 2025 is unwise, but Battlefield 6 does have one thing working in its favor: While Call of Duty continues to stink up the joint with a parade of horrendous cosmetics, DICE is talking about a return to the grounded, gritty look of Battlefields past.