In terms of numbers, it’d be hard to argue that the first Battlefield 6 beta weekend was anything other than a success. At times, the beta attracted more than half a million concurrent Steam players—enough to beat Call of Duty’s peak player count record since 2022. Our Morgan Park was impressed enough to declare that 2025 is Battlefield’s year to lose.
But as you’d expect for a beta test, the enthusiasm came with some caveats. Throughout the weekend, frustrated players said their enjoyment of the tank shelling and shotgunning festivities was being interrupted by the so-called “super bullet”: They’d be in a firefight where they were sinking rounds into an enemy, only to die immediately when they took what seemed like one shot in return.
Does something feel off about this game? from r/Battlefield
On the Battlefield subreddit, beta feedback threads mention kill time inconsistency, with some players noting that “TTK feels fine, but the ‘Time to death’ can feel instantaneous.” Anecdotally, I experienced the issue throughout my beta playtime: I’d hear a single, lethal thwip and drop dead, but my post-death damage log would show that I’d taken five or six hits. That disparity has led players to speculate there’s a bullet damage desync happening somewhere between the game client and multiplayer server.
That’s assuming, of course, that it’s not just a skill issue that we’re all trying to rationalize.
Thankfully, Battlefield 6 devs have provided some hope for our collective self-esteem: Yesterday, Dice principal gameplay designer Florian Le Bihan said on X that Battlefield Studios is collecting evidence of the super bullet phenomenon for investigation.
“If some of you have some video examples of suspected super bullet / unexpectedly fast TTD that you’ve recorded in the Battlefield 6 Open Beta – send my way,” Le Bihan tweeted.
In his replies, you can find some clips that pretty clearly indicate something is up. The videos from users @FINAL1DY and @benbit13 are most representative of my experience: Before they’re even able to pull their sights up, they’ve been casually deleted by what looks like one bullet that the game’s treating as four.
A few hours later, Le Bihan followed up to say he’d received “a bunch of good videos.” Hopefully, that indicates Battlefield Studios has enough material to begin tracking down the issue. Otherwise, my Battlefield confidence is taking a hit. Or rather four to six hits at once.
Whatever tweaks Battlefield Studios is able to make to TTD, we might not see the results until the full BF6 launch on October 10: Balancing changes announced before the start of the beta, like the Recon’s loss of the respawn beacon, are being saved for launch.