Battlefield 6 boss Vince Zampella has criticized the EA App for its launch-day fiasco, which prevented a significant number of people who pre-ordered the game from playing it as soon as it was released. The executive went as far as to advise some fans to purchase Battlefield 6 on Steam, even if they first have to refund it via the EA App.
EA’s PC launcher has been causing headaches for Battlefield 6 owners from the moment the game debuted on October 10. Although long queue times are to be expected from any massively popular multiplayer game on day one, Battlefield 6 PC players who bought the shooter via the EA App were reporting a complete inability to play due to inexplicably failing content ownership checks.
Battlefield 6 Boss Urges Players to Bypass EA App and Switch to Steam
As the October 10 outage dragged on, Battlefield franchise boss and EA EVP Vince Zampella took to X, formerly Twitter, to engage with fans and share his own frustrations with the situation. The executive said he had “yelled” about the service interruption, and later encouraged some players to refund the EA App version of the game and instead purchase the first-person shooter via Valve’s storefront. The Steam version of Battlefield 6 does not require the EA App, which allowed it to avoid whatever issues the publisher’s servers were experiencing.
Battlefield 6-Induced EA App Outage Took Hours to Fix
Although some Steam users have separately complained about the download manager in Valve’s client labeling the game as “not released” after it was already out, this was reportedly a minor issue. It was circumventable by launching Battlefield 6 from the Steam library or restarting one’s PC. Responding to one fan comment, Zampella said the EA App issues were fixed at 9:23pm ET, approximately ten hours following the game’s October 10 launch.
While it’s unclear how much his earlier comments affected the game’s sales distribution by PC storefront, Battlefield 6 blew up on Steam while the EA App outage was ongoing, peaking at 747,400 concurrent players. Zampella said he himself was playing the game via Steam. Responding to one Twitter suggestion to “yell at Andrew Wilson’s face,” the executive insisted that the EA CEO wasn’t to blame. “It’s not his fault, he’s just as upset as me,” Zampella remarked.
It’s not [EA CEO Andrew Wilson’s] fault, he’s just as upset as me.
Battlefield 6 is compensating some players for the EA App outage. Anyone who tried and failed to log into the game via the company’s launcher on day one will receive bonus XP boosters and a premium version of the shooter’s first battle pass for free. The latter is expected to retail for $9.99, though EA has yet to officially confirm its individual pricing. The premium battle pass was already included in the Phantom Edition, meaning players who purchased that version of Battlefield 6 via the EA App—without refunding and switching to Steam as Zampella advised—may end up worse off than those who bought only the base game. The battle pass itself will be released on October 28, coinciding with the start of Season 1.
- Released
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October 10, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, In-App Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
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Battlefield Studios
