Battlefield 6

Battlefield 6 is the 2025 entry in EA's large-scale military shooter series, developed by Battlefield Studios (a group led by DICE with Ripple Effect, Criterion, and Motive). It released October 10, 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, with REDSEC, a free-to-play battle royale behind the same Secure Boot gate, following on October 28, 2025. It runs on DICE's proprietary FrostbiteEngineFrostbite (EA / DICE)Frostbite is DICE's proprietary engine for Electronic Arts, known for large-scale environmental destruction. It powers the Battlefield series, including Battlefield 6, and a range of other EA titles. EA has publicly reaffirmed staying on Frostbite over Unreal for its destruction technology.1 game in this family → engine. On PC it is sold through Steam, the EA app, and the Epic Games Store.

Before you buy Battlefield 6 or download REDSEC, run msinfo32 and check that BIOS Mode reads UEFI and Secure Boot State reads On, and make sure TPM 2.0 is on too, since EA lists it as required. If you are on older hardware or an unfamiliar BIOS, expect to change those firmware settings before you can play, following your motherboard maker's guide, and know that Linux and the Steam Deck are currently blocked. EA's most recent anti-cheat progress report is the best source for the current state.

Battlefield 6 ships with EA JavelinAnti-cheatEA Javelin AnticheatEA Javelin is Electronic Arts' in-house kernel-mode anti-cheat, the rebrand (2025) of EA Anti-Cheat, which first shipped with FIFA 23 in 2022. In Battlefield 6 it requires UEFI Secure Boot to be enabled, using a hardware-to-OS trust chain to detect tampering and make kernel-driver cheats harder. The Secure Boot mandate currently blocks Linux and the Steam Deck. Javelin also protects other EA titles, such as EA SPORTS FC 26 and skate., whose Steam pages list it as kernel-level anti-cheat with no Secure Boot or TPM requirement, so this guide records the firmware ask on the title. Corrected 2026-10-20: this entry used to list Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 as what Javelin itself asks of a machine; that is Battlefield 6's requirement.1 game in this family → Anti-Cheat, EA's in-house kernel-mode anti-cheat (the rebranded successor to EA Anti-Cheat, which first shipped with FIFA 23 in 2022). The load-bearing detail is its firmware requirement: EA says you must enable Secure Boot to play Battlefield 6 on PC, and it also lists TPM 2.0, HVCI capability, and VBS capability as required at every spec tier, while its November 2025 update said enforcing those may come later. The stated rationale is a hardware-to-OS trust chain (firmware to bootloader to kernel) that Javelin uses to detect tampering and make kernel-driver cheats harder. The trade-off is real: the Secure Boot mandate blocks Linux and the Steam Deck, and Valve rates the game Unsupported on Steam Deck. The anti-cheat installer is EAAntiCheat.Installer.exe; we will not assert the exact runtime driver name without a clean source.

EA publishes regular anti-cheat progress reports with its own metrics: in its November 28, 2025 update it said Javelin blocked more than 1.2 million cheat attempts across the August open beta, more than 367,000 over launch weekend, and 2.39 million in total, with about 98 percent of launch-week matches free of cheater impact, and that Secure Boot adoption during the beta rose from 62.5 to 92.5 percent. These are vendor-reported figures, worth labeling as such. Technical director Christian Buhl publicly acknowledged the cost of the Secure Boot requirement, saying he wished they did not have to do it because it locks some players out, and framing it as a response to cheating. Coverage of the requirement, including players struggling to enable Secure Boot on older hardware, ran in PC Gamer, Tom's Hardware, and elsewhere.