Blizzard's ex-CEO says Battlefield 6 will "boot stomp" Call of Duty this year because the franchise has "gone downhill" — calls it a victory for players as COD "won't be lazy" anymore

Mike Ybarra, Blizzard's former president who chaired the company through Microsoft's acquisition, is throwing shots at his ex on social media, but for good reason. Ybarra posted on 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."

Battlefield has been enjoying one hell of a resurgence these past few days, with the latest entry in the series poised to mark a sensational comeback for the FPS genre as a whole. Battlefield 6 takes a back-to-basics approach that its rival, Call of Duty, has slowly drifted away from. EA itself tainted the shooter's legacy with Battlefield 2042, but the publisher is doing everything right at the moment—and one waned executive seems to agree. Ybarra's sentiment echoes the community reaction to Battlefield 6, with the game's open beta amassing over 250,000 players this weekend.

Everywhere online, you see praise for a return to form, and the developers are listening to player feedback to improve the game. Ybarra follows up his statement by claiming that "COD has gone downhill" these past few years because its focus has wandered. However, Battlefield 6 will serve as a cautionary tale for Activision to try again finally.

What Ybarra's saying is common sense: more competition results in better products for the consumer. If one company dominates the market—in this case, the military shooter genre—then it's bound to stagnate, and that's exactly what happened with Call of Duty. Many players also seem to despise the Fortnite-esque direction it has taken, littering the game with unsuitable collaborations that detract from the franchise's serious edge. Battlefield, on the other hand, is streamlining its mechanics, focusing on the core aspects of a shooter and ensuring it delivers the most polished experience in that area.

After this post, Ybarro received some backlash from users, who said he only hates COD because it's under Microsoft's jurisdiction now and, more importantly, how 2016's Infinite Warfare—one of the most disliked COD releases ever—still managed to outsell Battlefield 1, which was more hyped at the time. Ybarro replied with the safest answers known to man. He called Call of Duty "a mess," claiming it has "gone downhill" for many years due to persistent cheating issues, unrealistic installation sizes, and rainbow colors (whatever that means).

These are very real complaints associated with the franchise, but Ybarro doesn't list any positive traits for the competitor. In essence, it's like saying "you suck less" rather than "you're actually impressive."

Any empire too arrogant to acknowledge its fallacies has already begun to crumble. Still, Call of Duty is simply too big to fail, at least that's what Activision reportedly thinks, after witnessing the colossal success of Battlefield 6. A lot of players return to COD out of habit, so the question now becomes whether Battlefield 6 can ride the wave to change the status quo or is this all just a temporary mirage until they make yet another Modern Warfare with updated gun sounds and animations that lure people back like a pie sitting at a window.

Battlefield 6 releases on October 6 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, and it has relatively modest hardware requirements, with a 60 FPS mode default on even the Series S consoles. The game's open beta will end tomorrow, so expect the news cycle to slow down, but you can bet EA will do everything in its power to keep the hype machine rolling for what has sprung up as their best shot at the military shooter crown since Battlefield 1.

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