Battlefield 6 will “boot stomp” Call of Duty this year, says former Activision-Blizzard boss

Battlefield 6 has been inviting many excited virtual soldiers aboard its hype train lately, having leaked earlier in July before going public with an official reveal trailer and two open betas. It’s too early to tell whether this is Battlefield back to its former glory after a muted response to 2021’s Battlefield 2042 – or is it?

Former Activision-Blizzard president Mike Ybarra doesn’t seem to think so. He recently tweeted that Battlefield 6 will “boot stomp” Call of Duty this year.

“CoD has gone downhill for years since then,” Ybarra added. “It’s a mess.”

It’s not unusual to hear somebody badmouthing CoD on social media, but when the criticism comes from the former head of the publisher who creates the games, the words carry a bit more weight. Ybarra had been with Activision-Blizzard since 2019, and announced that he was leaving in January 2024, shortly after Microsoft’s blockbuster acquisition of the company. During his time there, Activision-Blizzard released five Call of Duty titles.

Ybarra’s assertion is that the series hasn’t faced serious competition elsewhere lately, and that’s made the likes of Soap and Captain Price complacent. A truly good Battlefield title might light a fire under the numerous studios who develop CoD titles and, in time, raise the bar for the whole military shooter genre.

Or, as Ybarra puts it: “CoD will get better because BF will be great. You’re blind if you don’t see that. Bitter? No, glad I’m not part of the end of Xbox. Upset they can’t lead teams to make good games? Yes. Because they layoff all those people for leaderships mishaps.”

As Ybarra extends his kill-streak against Activision-Blizzard’s PR, it’s worth reflecting that we don’t actually know whether Battlefield 6 will be great, nor do we know what Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will be like this year.

In fact the only certainty is that TG will spend no small part of this autumn getting absolutely taken apart by children with prodigious twitch-aim skills and maxed out mic volume in both titles.