The original Battlefield is, many will agree, one of the best first-person shooters of all-time.

You certainly couldn’t say the same of the franchise’s most recent entry, Battlefield 2042.

Yes, DICE has done a pretty decent job at overhauling the game in the last couple of years after it was released in a buggy, glitch-ridden state in 2021.

I do fear though that despite devs’ best efforts, the damage was already done with players flocking elsewhere.

That left EA’s Battlefield franchise in a rather precarious position.

You see, with the industry’s ongoing sales volatility, studios and publishers are relying on established franchises to keep them going and with Battlefield on the rocks, well, EA will not want to hammer the final nail in the coffin with the series’ next entry.

With that in mind, to say that there’s a lot of pressure riding on Battlefield 6 is an understatement.

That’s assuming it follows on from Battlefield’s numbered entries after the outlier that was Battlefield 2042, although it will technically be the seventh game in the series.

In order to get the franchise back on track, EA and DICE are turning to mass community testing.

I suppose the line of thinking is that if players love the game during the test period, it’s surely a winner upon release.

And if they don’t, well, adjustments can be made before it’s too late.

Last year, EA confirmed during an investor’s event that testing would begin in “early 2025” and that time is now seemingly upon us.

I’ll get the bad news out of the way though.

For now, this is not an open playtest with the test operating via an invite-only policy – and it goes without saying that those involved will be under NDA.

That’s not to say that open playtesting or public beta tests won’t surface further down the line.

As reported by MP1ST, EA has or soon will be sending invites to the lucky Battlefield fans and content creators who have been selected.

As for what we know about the next Battlefield entry, it’ll reportedly scrap Specialists and 128-player matches, taking the series back to its roots and away from the direction of Battlefield 2042.

Motive Studio, Ripple Effect, and Criterion are all believed to be assisting DICE on the game, so this is a major effort.

If private playtesting is set to imminently commence, it signifies that the game is in a playable state so hopefully a reveal isn’t too far away, perhaps one that confirms a release date.