New Battlefield 6 Skips Ray Tracing, Developers Confirm Performance Focus

Battlefield 6 will launch without ray tracing support, a decision the developers confirmed was made early in the game’s development to prioritize performance. The information came from Christian Buhl, Studio Technical Director at Ripple Effect, one of the studios behind Battlefield 6. 

In an interview with ComicBook.com, Buhl stated, “No, we are not going to have ray tracing when the game launches, and we don’t have any plans in the near future for it either.” He explained that the decision was made “relatively early on” so that the team could “focus on performance and make sure that all of our effort was focused on making the game as [optimized] as possible for the default settings and the default users.” He added that this choice was made to ensure “performance for everyone else,” including players using non-default settings.

Ray tracing is a rendering technique that realistically simulates lighting, shadows, and reflections, but it is known to be resource-intensive and demanding on hardware. Battlefield 6 will exclude this feature at launch and in the near future, with the development team concentrating on consistent performance across systems instead of implementing graphics technology that could reduce stability.

The game has also been confirmed to use EA’s Javelin anti-cheat technology, which requires Secure Boot. This requirement prevents the game from running on Linux-based devices, including the Steam Deck. Players who avoid Windows will not be able to run Battlefield 6 due to this restriction.

Battlefield 6 will release globally on October 10, 2025. It will arrive shortly before Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which is scheduled to launch on November 14, 2025.

In addition to technical details, Electronic Arts has set pricing and editions for the title. The standard edition of Battlefield 6 is priced at $70. The publisher has also announced a Phantom Edition priced at $100, which includes the following items:

• Four soldier skins (Phantom Squad pack)
• Shrouded weapon package
• Drop Shadow weapon package
• Glimmer melee weapon skin
• Death’s Head weapon sticker
• Weapon charm
• Dog tag
• Chimera vehicle skin
• BF Pro token, which provides a battle pass with 25 tier skips, exclusive unlocks, and XP boosts

Additionally, players who pre-order either edition will receive the Tombstone pack, which includes cosmetics and XP boosts.

Developers Alexia Christofi and David Sirland confirmed that Battlefield 6 will not include gameplay-affecting microtransactions. They stated that all gameplay-related content, including new modes, weapons, and seasonal additions, will be available to every player, without relying on chance-based systems for paid unlocks. Microtransactions will only apply to cosmetics, which the developers described as remaining “grounded.”

Battlefield 6’s open beta concluded in mid-August 2025 and was reported as record-breaking in scale. The title has also been recognized for its relatively modest system requirements compared to other AAA releases of the same year. Early impressions and the hype following the beta have led fans to suggest that Battlefield 6 could challenge Call of Duty upon release.

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