Recent Battlefield 6 Steam reviews have fallen to 'Mixed,' with players pointing to bugs, “aggressive monetization,” and generative AI content as player numbers dwindle amid the long wait for...
Recent Battlefield 6 Steam reviews have fallen to 'Mixed,' with players pointing to bugs, “aggressive monetization,” and generative AI content as player numbers dwindle amid the long wait for Season 2.
Battlefield 6 took off with the strongest start the EA FPS franchise had seen in years when it launched for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S on October 10. Although the time since has seen Battlefield Studios’ new installment fall out of (and back into) favor with fans, the rough patch it currently finds itself in is undeniably its longest yet.
Just as Battlefield 6 clawed its way to general positivity following the mid-November launch of its Season 1: California Resistance update, December saw the start of an influx of new negative Steam reviews and a continued decline in concurrent player numbers on Valve's platform. That’s at least partly thanks to the release of the final Season 1 chapter, Winter Offensive, which focused on limited-time, snowy versions of existing multiplayer maps, but it wasn’t the lack of new locations driving this downward trend.
The December 9 1.1.3.0 update’s Ice Lock event and Ice Climbing Axe melee weapon came side-by-side with a glitchy main menu, game-breaking stuttering issues, and a subtle (and unintentional) infantry movement nerf. BF Studios was quick to deliver on its promises to fix many of the issues plaguing players across PC and consoles despite the impending holiday break, but Winter Offensive has since proven to be the last crack in the steadily weakening dam keeping displeased Battlefield 6 fans at bay.
Losing Steam
Complaints related to Winter Offensive, compounded with longtime desires to see things like bigger Conquest maps, additional grounded skins, and other highly requested features, resulted in the beginning of the general decline in favorability, including for those on Steam. December 10, one day after the update’s launch, saw 652 negative reviews and 474 positive reviews logged in English. That’s a shift from the previous trend, which had seen favorable scores outweighing the negative each day.
The weeks leading to this point saw Battlefield 6 boasting “Mostly Positive” reviews in nearly all languages (save for Simplified Chinese, which has remained at “Mostly Negative” since late October). SteamDB’s user tracker has all reviews reaching positivity of 69.8% from December 2 – December 8, with that number since falling to 68.4%.
Steam considers games with 70% positive ratings to have 'Mostly Positive' reviews, meaning Battlefield 6 was on the verge of reclaiming the blue label before losing momentum with Winter Offensive. Now, its total reviews in all languages remain 'Mixed' since first falling to the mustard-yellow zone with the launch of REDSEC in late October. Valve’s digital storefront shares that just 53% of the 17,331 reviews of the last 30 days are positive, meaning the latest user responses aren’t just 'Mixed' – they’re approaching 'Mostly Negative.'
Seeing Red
“I have to be honest,” one negative review posted January 1 says, “I can't believe how hard my opinion on this game flipped from first week of release to now.”
Of the more than 95,000 negative Battlefield 6 Steam reviews, most players’ critiques seem to fall into only a few categories. Calls for larger Conquest maps, bug fixes, and stable gunplay have existed since October and never stopped showing up across message boards. Recent reviews, meanwhile, turn their sights to Winter Offensive and monetization within Battlefield 6. The premium game has been lambasted for its pop-up windows since launch, but with the December update seemingly doing more harm than good out of the gate, pricey microtransactions are stinging a little more than usual.
“Pay $70 just to get ads for battle passes shoved in your face before you even make it to the main menu,” one Steam user said.
Another talking point tanking Battlefield 6 Steam scores involves the controversy surrounding EA and BF Studios’ suspected, undisclosed use of generative AI. Fans latched to what appeared to be a sticker featuring an M4A1 with two barrels around December 20, resulting in another uptick in negative reviews. Players have continued taking to the Steam reviews section to fight back against the use of generative AI in the weeks since.
“Again,” one negative review says, “a lot of good faith I felt with this game, the reason I don’t recommend it now, and have no intention of coming back, is the use of generative AI.”
“Needs a Generative AI Disclosure on the store page,” another popular review adds. “The new stuff they've been adding is literally AI artwork. Garbage.”
Despite AI controversies and never-ending discussions about what is and isn’t a “grounded” skin, one of the more interesting trends among many negative reviews may explain why the Battlefield 6 community is so intense: for all of its faults, there are still people who really like this game. While there are certainly posts with only a few hours of gameplay on record, many of the most popular reviews are from players who have not only logged hundreds of hours in the new Battlefield game but continued to play it in recent weeks.
“You know how a game being almost good is in a sense way worse than it just actually being bad?” another review said. “Yeah that's Battlefield 6.”
“The gameplay is back, but EA just robbed us (again),” another review adds. “Rating: 2/5 stars (5/5 for gameplay, 0/5 for business practices).”
In Need of Reinforcements
Players across different channels on X/Twitter, the official EA forums, TikTok, and more have gone back and forth when it comes to their feelings regarding the state of Battlefield 6. That’s changed in recent weeks as controversial updates continue to mount, with steadily declining player counts on Steam only adding fuel to the fire.
At the time of this story’s publication, the EA shooter had reached a 24-hour peak of slightly more than 90,000 concurrent players, and it’s hard not to compare the number to the all-time peak of 747,440 players it reached at launch. Compare and contrast to Embark Studios' Arc Raiders, whose Steam player count has shown remarkable resilience since its launch at the end of October. One of the ongoing narratives is that both Call of Duty and Battlefield have suffered in the face of stiff competition from the cheaper Arc Raiders, which saw a peak concurrent player count of 352,000 on Steam on January 6.
While Battlefield 6 struggles to keep up its momentum, at least on PC, there is one community that some believe has remained unwaveringly critical of every last skin, map, and mode since October.
Many have viewed Reddit as a hub for harsher criticism for several months, especially when it comes to the r/Battlefield subreddit. The subsection of the community, which has raked in nearly 1.5 million users, has attracted the attention of those looking to call out EA and BF Studios for some of the more egregious problems with Battlefield 6 for months. Post-launch discourse on the social media platform got so heated, so quickly, that some fans felt compelled to spin off a positivity-minded offshoot called r/LowSodiumBattlefield. It currently brings in 93,000 weekly visitors, with its all-time top post calling r/Battlefield a “complete cesspool of karma farming and whining.”
Still, regardless of its actual relevance among players offline or online, r/Battlefield remains one of the most popular places to talk about Battlefield 6. As PC player numbers and ratings fall, the pocket of the Battlefield 6 community is at odds with itself. While some argue that Season 2 will be a “make or break” moment, others are using the space to re-introduce the “bait and switch” accusations against EA that originally began shortly after launch.
“BF6 was a blatant bait and switch from the more grounded beta,” a December 10 Steam review the Reddit community recently latched onto says, “now the COD-ification has been started.”
The same review, which is positioned as one of Battlefield 6’s all-time “most helpful” negative Steam reviews, calls out the shooter for being “aggressively monetized,” demanding challenges, lack of persistent servers, issues related to hit registration, and much more. They are criticisms shared between wide sections of the Battlefield 6 community, regardless of whether they left positive or negative ratings.
One thing is certain: Season 2 presents an opportunity for EA and BF Studios to retake the ground it's lost not only in the last month but since launch, too. The team has spent the months since its October release publishing updates large and small as it attempts to keep up with player feedback, so we should have a better idea of what the future holds when Season 2 is revealed in the near future.
In the meantime, you can read about why some believe Battlefield 6 will still likely emerge above Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 as the best-selling game of 2025. You can also learn about how some fans helped steer BF Studios away from vibrant skins with an update to one particularly controversial infantry outfit.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
