Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard Entertainment, expressed on social media that he believes "Battlefield will boot stomp CoD this year," suggesting that the competition will push Call of Duty to improve. Battlefield 6 is taking a back-to-basics approach and has shown strong interest with over 250,000 players in its open beta. Critics have noted Ybarra's bias against Call of Duty, which is now owned by Microsoft, and pointed out that despite criticisms, Call of Duty has outsold Battlefield 1. Ybarra described Call of Duty as "a mess," citing issues like cheating and large installation sizes. Battlefield 6 is set to release on October 6 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, with modest hardware requirements and a default 60 FPS mode on Series S consoles.