Battlefield 6 Devs Hope Console Players Keep Crossplay on Even If ‘We Can Never Win’ Against PC Cheaters
The developers behind Battlefield 6 are encouraging players on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S to keep crossplay on, even if they “can’t promise that there will be zero cheaters” on PC.
Ripple Effect technical director Christian Buhl and senior console combat designer Matthew Nickerson talked about the ever-present threat of cheaters in Battlefield during a recent interview with IGN. During our chat, we learned about how the team is supporting console players with everything from crossplay to performance and fidelity modes.
We also learned about how the studio has implemented anti-cheat measures for next month’s Battlefield sequel. The conversation saw Buhl acknowledge that, while it will be hard to guarantee a cheat-free environment for those playing with the Battlefield 6 PC pool, Ripple Effect and the rest of the BF Studios team have gone to great lengths to fight off cheaters.
“So, we’re doing a lot on the PC side to clamp down on cheating as much as possible,” Buhl said. “We have a whole team within Battlefield dedicated to anti-cheat, which includes engineers, analysts who are reviewing things and banning players, and figuring out what the latest cheats are. We have another whole dedicated team at EA to anti-cheat that we work closely with.”
Buhl also highlights the new Battlefield 6 anti-cheat system, Javelin, as well as the divisive secure boot, as other important components in their strategy. Still, as cheaters continue to run amok across the most popular multiplayer games on the market, Ripple Effect knows some will slip through the cracks, especially on PC.
“Now, we can never win against cheaters, right?” Buhl added. “Cheaters will always be there. It’s a never-ending cat-and-mouse game. I can’t promise that there will be zero cheaters if you’re playing against PC players. That’s just simply not possible, but I can say that we are being extremely aggressive. We see this as critical to the success of — to the health of — the game.”
Battlefield 6 has a release date of October 10, 2025, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S, but cheaters were able to infiltrate servers months early. EA held open beta periods throughout August, allowing players to get a pre-release taste of the Battlefield experience BF Studios has been cooking up for the last few years. It also saw players come face-to-face with cheaters despite the development team’s efforts, with EA reporting it prevented 330,000 cheat attempts by August 8, just one day after open beta early access began.
Nickerson said crossplay will be on by default when a player loads into Battlefield 6 for the first time, something players should know if they’re especially worried about encountering cheaters on PC. Console users who turn off crossplay will limit their pools to the PlayStation and Xbox communities, but Ripple Effect is hoping it won’t come to that.
“You don’t want to play a game and feel like a bunch of people on the other side are cheating,” Buhl added. “I hope console players feel confident enough in what we’re doing for cheating on the PC side that they don’t feel like they want to turn crossplay off just for that reason. If they do want to, that is an available option for them, but we think it’s super important for PC and console players to be confident that most of the people that they’re playing with or against are not cheating, and we’re putting a huge amount of effort into that.”
You can see Buhl and Nickerson explain some of the other ways BF Studios is prepping for the launch of Battlefield 6 in our full interview. You can also read up on what the rest of the Battlefield team learned from the beta and what kind of fixes players can expect to see at launch.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
