Battlefield 6 Console Showdown: How It Really Runs on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S

Battlefield 6 is doing the unsexy thing on consoles: it ditches ray tracing and sinks all the budget into speed. The short version is that it works. Across PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, frame rates stay where they should most of the time, even when the maps are chaotic and full of explosions.

How they got there (and why it matters)

EA and Battlefield Studios made a very specific call this time: no ray tracing on consoles, period. The team focused on raw performance and stability first, then dressed it up as much as the hardware would allow. Digital Foundry’s breakdown lines up with that plan — frame rates are steady, drops are rare, and pacing is clean.

The interesting behind-the-scenes twist: the studio built around Xbox Series S first. Technical Director Christian Buhl told Kotaku that starting with the least powerful box ended up strengthening everything else.

"It made the whole game better and more stable."

Translation: they laid the foundation on hard mode so the PS5, PS5 Pro, and Series X would breeze through the same scenarios. After what happened with Battlefield 2042, this is a very sensible move.

The console options, at a glance

• PS5 Fidelity Mode: 1440p target upscaled with FSR/PSSR, locked 60 FPS. Better shadows, cleaner lighting, longer draw distance. Image quality is sharp enough that you won’t miss native 4K.
• PS5 Performance Mode: internal resolution around 1280p before upscaling, generally 85–95 FPS in heavy fights. Shadows are dialed back and the world draws in a bit closer. If you don’t have a 120Hz VRR display, expect some tearing — on a standard 60Hz screen, Fidelity Mode is the safer pick.
• PS5 Pro Fidelity Mode: native 4K at a locked 60 FPS. That’s a real upgrade.
• PS5 Pro Performance Mode: 1620p with frame rates commonly in the 90–120 FPS range. There’s also a small bump to how destruction holds together under stress, though you’d need side-by-side footage to really spot it.
• Xbox Series X Fidelity Mode: 1440p, locked 60 FPS. Essentially matches PS5’s base Fidelity setup.
• Xbox Series X Performance Mode: roughly the same as PS5 Performance on resolution and frame rate. With VRR, it’s smooth; without it, tearing can show up, but some comparisons note the Series X tears a touch less than PS5 here.
• Xbox Series S: one mode, 1080p at 60 FPS, and it sticks to that target more confidently than you might expect. Visual trade-offs are obvious if you go looking — cube map reflections instead of screen-space, lower shadow map resolution, and scaled-back terrain detail — but in motion it plays well.

What it feels like in the big modes

The real test is 128-player Conquest with vehicles turning the map into rubble. Both PS5 and Series X hold up, keeping to their targets even when the screen is a mess of smoke, debris, and overlapping explosions. That performance-first strategy is doing exactly what it was supposed to do: keep the game responsive when things get loud.

A few practical takeaways

If you’re on a 60Hz TV, pick PS5 Fidelity Mode and don’t look back — you get consistent 60 and cleaner image quality. If you’ve got a 120Hz set with VRR, PS5 Performance and Series X Performance are where the high frame-rate fun is. And if you’re on Series S, the single 1080p/60 mode is better than the bullet points make it sound, because the cuts are mostly invisible when you’re actually playing.

Bottom line: skipping ray tracing to lock in frame rate was the right call for consoles. It’s not flashy, but it’s exactly what Battlefield needs when the match goes off the rails.