Summary

EA will reportedly launch the firstBattlefieldLabs playtest on Friday, inviting those who signed up to trial “concepts and mechanics” for roughly two hours on PC.

An email sent to participants, which was allegedly viewed byInsider Gaming, prohibits them from recording, streaming, and discussing the game. Players will reportedly need to sign a confidentiality agreement to enter the “closed test environment” later this week, though as with any beta, that doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be leaks.

Battlefield 6 gameplay footage of soldier running down a corridor with their gun out.

If you missedthe announcementearlier this year, Battlefield Labs is an initiative spearheaded by the newly formed Battlefield Studios, a coalition comprised of DICE, Motive, Criterion, and Ripple Effect. Through Labs, EA is enlisting the community to test key areas of Battlefield 6ahead of its launch later this yearin what is essentially a more in-depth version of past pre-launch betas.

As a result of the coalition,the Need for Speed franchise has unfortunately been put on ice.

BattlefieldFranchiseTag

Immediately after Battlefield Labs—and Battlefield 6—were announced, the website was flooded with wide-eyed applicants, stretching wait times from mere minutes to hours. It was later revealed that. Obviously, not all of them will get a chance to try the beta on Friday, but even if you weren’t among the swaths of fans clamoring to get in, there’s still a chance for future betas.

Sign-ups are liveright now, and the queue isn’t nearly as bad. For a rough idea of what to expect, I was 400th in line with a wait time of around two minutes. That’s a far cry from what it was just a month ago. EA has also ensured that it won’t select applicants based on who registered first, so enlisting now won’t put you at a disadvantage.

We don’t have a firm release date for Battlefield 6 yet, and EA said that it might be internally delayed to account forGTA 6, but we can at least expect more pre-launch closed betas for Battlefield Labs, giving fans plenty of opportunities to try the game out first-hand ahead of its full release.