The “Battlefield 6 effect”? Arma Reforger lost almost 4,000 players after the launch of this year’s most anticipated military shooter

Battlefield 6 is easily one of the most hyped games of the year. The launch was so massive that the servers were practically on fire from all the players trying to jump in at once. Of course, when a game like that drops, it tends to pull attention away from others. Arma Reforger definitely felt the impact, with its player count taking a noticeable dip since Battlefield 6 hit the scene.

The fallout of Battlefield 6’s launch

Arma Reforger has been getting some solid updates lately. There’s a solo campaign and PS5 players can finally enjoy mod support. But despite all that progress, it just couldn’t escape the “Battlefield 6 effect.” Ever since Battlefield 6 was released on October 10, Arma Reforger’s player numbers have had a clear drop-off, especially during weekends.

Source: SteamDB

Before Battlefield 6 launched, weekends were pretty active in Arma Reforger, with around 17 to 18 thousand concurrent players online – and sometimes even more when a new update landed. But now those numbers have dipped to around 13 to 14 thousand.

And it’s not just Arma Reforger feeling the impact, other military FPS games are taking a hit too. Titles like Delta Force, Squad, Helldivers 2 have all seen their numbers shrink since Battlefield 6 came out. It’s pretty much a ripple effect across the whole genre, and with Season 1 coming to BF6, it could be a while before things start to return to normal.

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But this probably isn’t a huge shock for the other games’ devs, they were likely expecting it. Battlefield fans had been waiting nearly four years for a new installment, or even longer if you consider how Battlefield 2042 was received. The hype was real; there’s even a Battlefield-inspired mod in Arma Reforger, which shows just how much players were craving a proper BF experience.

Battlefield 6

October 10, 2025

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• Battlefield (franchise)
• FPP shooters (FPS)
• ArmA (franchise)