Battlefield 6 doesn't come with ray-tracing support due to the developers prioritizing performance over graphical fidelity. Given how this particular technology has become prevalent in AAA games, Battlefield 6's decision to skip it entirely surprised some players who tried out the game's open beta, which concluded around mid-August.
The trade-off between performance and visuals is something modern game studios are no strangers to. Devs routinely have to make important calls on such trade-offs, such as whether to incorporate ray-tracing or not, in order to better serve their targeted player experience. For those unaware, ray-tracing is a resource-intensive feature that makes in-game environments look more immersive by giving certain elements, including lighting, reflections, shadows, and weather effects, a major facelift. Recently, a Battlefield 6 dev shared why the much-anticipated title steers clear of this graphical feature.
Battlefield 6 And The Best Video Game Betas Of All Time
When a game has as successful a beta launch as these titles did, it's almost a guarantee that the full 1.0 release will be a hit.
Battlefield 6 Skips Ray-Tracing, Favors Consistent Performance Across Systems
In an interview with ComicBook, Christian Buhl, the studio technical director at Ripple Effect (a part of Battlefield Studios), revealed that Battlefield 6's lack of ray-tracing has to do with the devs wanting to "focus on performance." He confirmed that EA's military shooter won't have this visual feature at launch and won't receive it in the near future, either. Further explaining the reason behind the move, Buhl said that the team wanted to ensure all of its energy was dedicated towards making the game "as [optimized] as possible for the default settings and the default users." He also highlighted that this decision was made "relatively early on" in development and that the devs wanted to make sure that, between graphics and performance, the next Battlefield would prioritize "performance for everyone else," including those playing with non-default settings.
Despite ray-tracing becoming an increasingly standard feature in big-budget productions similar to Battlefield 6, the call to skip the feature altogether may not impact the game's fans enough to be an issue. That is because fans of EA's long-running FPS series are generally more invested in its online multiplayer mode, where higher frame-rates are more crucial than prettier visuals. Opting to leave out ray-tracing, which is very demanding on a system's resources, could give a significant boost to the frame-rate and, as a result, offer a more fluid and consistent gaming experience for most players.
Following Battlefield 6's record-breaking beta, the hype surrounding the title has been remarkably high. Its impressions so far have also led to fans vouching for EA's game to give Call of Duty, a long-term rival, a run for its money this year. With the new Battlefield launching on October 10, just a month before Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 lands on November 14, it will be exciting to see how these two behemoths of the FPS genre compare against each other this time.
Battlefield 6
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 90%
- Released
- October 10, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, In-App Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Battlefield Studios
- Publisher(s)
- EA
