"Will boot stomp CoD this year": Former Blizzard president praises Battlefield 6

Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty Black Ops 7 are both scheduled for release in 2025. While the former will be released on October 10, 2025, the latter currently does not have an official release date. Regardless, former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has a prediction about the games months ahead of their release, as he took to X, saying:

"Battlefield will boot stomp CoD this year. But the real win here is CoD won’t be lazy anymore, and we’ll all get better FPS games for it."

The opinion was posted on X on August 8, 2025, a day before the Battlefield 6 Open Beta kicked off. The game has so far received high levels of engagement, with the player count surpassing 300,000 on the first day of the beta, August 9, 2025.

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The game is currently trending among fans. On the flip side, Black Ops 7 has not made as much noise yet.

Former Blizzard President Mike Ybarra picks Battlefield 6 over Black Ops 7

Mike Ybarra worked as the President of Blizzard from 2021 to 2024. He left the company soon after its acquisition by Microsoft and has been a harsh critic of the Call of Duty franchise.

Though Ybarra seemingly believes that Battlefield 6 will come out on top as the best FPS, there is more to his message. The former Blizzard President strongly believes that the competition will prompt the Black Ops 7 developers to work harder on delivering a better game.

He further defended his argument and responded to a fan, noting that BF6 would change things up for fans in terms of overall aesthetic, cosmetics, and more:

"CoD has gone downhill for years since then. It’s a mess. Cheating, heavy UI/install, rainbow colors. People are sick of it. Luckily BF will force them to change it."

The reply was a direct response to a fan comparing the sales of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1 in 2016. While fans debate the competition between the two titles, Activision is seemingly unbothered by EA's upcoming title.

According to a report by Insider Gaming, Activision was not worried about competition from BF6, as it believed the Call of Duty franchise was too big to fail.

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About the author

Prit is an observer, writer, and enthusiastic player of several FPS games. He's been playing games for far longer than he has been writing about them which gives him the unique perspective of a hardened player. He's also spent years writing content, novels, songs, and short stories to master his grip on the written word.

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Edited by Adarsh J Kumar