Battlefield 6‘s open beta launched less than 24 hours ago across consoles and PC. And already, there are numerous videos floating around that show players using cheating software that gives them an unfair advantage. This has led to a firestorm online as many PC players are upset about being forced to jump through hoops to use Secure Boot, tech designed to limit malicious activity, yet cheaters are already infesting BF6‘s beta.
On August 6, the highly anticipated Battlefield 6 open beta went live…if you had an early access code. Yeah, not really an open beta, but whatever. And despite EA devoting a lot of resources to preventing players from cheating, including the required use of Secure Boot, players began sharing videos online of what appear to be people playing the beta while using wallhacks and other cheats that reveal information about enemy players that shouldn’t be available. One video I found featured a montage, complete with music, of what appears to be one person killing dozens and dozens of other players across various matches and maps in the Battlefield 6 open beta.
All first-person shooters, like Counter-Strike 2, are affected by cheating ⚠️
Despite Anti-Cheat announcements, Battlefield 6 has been affected since day one 🚫 pic.twitter.com/cwxLPanq2N
— CS2 Vaccoin (@vaccoin) August 8, 2025
Another video of what appears to be a BF6 open beta cheater has racked up nearly seven million views on Twitter. The video’s popularity and the huge response to it were big enough to attract the attention of Battlefield producer Alexia Christofi, who replied and explained that the team was aware of the cheating and that she believed the player in the clip had already been banned. So far, the cheating appears to be only on PC, though because of crossplay, these cheaters can play against Xbox and PS5 users.
Kotaku has contacted EA about the cheating seen in the videos and asked for more information on the situation.
Of course, there’s no way to completely stop people from cheating in a video game that can be downloaded locally to a PC or console. But what is angering many players online is that Battlefield 6, like the upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops 7, requires PC users to use Secure Boot. This is a relatively new technology that helps prevent malicious software from booting up on a Windows PC. Here’s how Activision describes the tech: “Secure Boot makes sure a PC can only load trusted software when Windows starts.”
The problem is that on some older setups, Secure Boot requires users to screw around with their BIOS, which can cause a lot of damage to a PC if done incorrectly. I mean, look at EA’s support page about Secure Boot and the steps needed just to see if the feature is active or not on your computer, and you can see why it’s giving a lot of players trouble. And even if it does work, it’s a lot of hoops to jump through, and the end result is that people are still cheating. BF6 isn’t even out yet, just in open beta, and cheaters have, in less than 48 hours, gotten wallhacks working in the game. You can understand why some players are royally upset about the whole situation.
Vince Zampella, the head of Battlefield Studios, was asked about anti-cheat last week and said that until the “day we die, we will be fighting” cheaters.
“It’s a weird one, because you don’t want to talk about what you’re doing,” said Zampella in an interview with Gaming Interviews on YouTube. “It gives people that are trying to cheat a head start against you. It’s a huge thing in the industry, in gaming. It’s a constant arms race that we’re always putting a lot of effort into, know that. It’s something that we would stamp out completely if we could, it’s just an arms race. To the day we die, we will be fighting it.”
Updated: 8/8/2025, 4:40 p.m. ET: EA has published a forum post detailing its efforts to combat cheating in the BF6 open beta. The company explained that Secure Boot isn’t and was never intended to be a “silver bullet” against cheating in the game. It’s just part of a larger effort to combat naughty players. EA also claims to have prevented over 300,000 attempts to cheat or tamper with Battlefield 6‘s open beta, and it’s received over 100,000 reports of players who might be cheating. They are now working to remove those players who are actually cheating.
“Anti-Cheat isn’t one and done,” explained an EA rep. “It’s an ever-evolving battlefield, and what has worked for us previously or in different games doesn’t always work in all of them. I hope this helps, and please keep the reports coming in – we’ll continue cleaning up the cheaters so you can have a fair game.”
