Battlefield 6 takes swipe at Call of Duty collabs in new trailer with celebrities

The latest Battlefield 6 trailer takes another jab at Call of Duty, firing shots at the rival shooter over its celebrity crossovers.

Battlefield 6 is set to arrive on October 10 and go head-to-head with Black Ops 7, which releases the following month on November 14. Throughout the marketing, EA and DICE have been poking fun at their opponent, specifically about CoD’s recent reliance on flashy skins.

Design director Shashank Uchil even mentioned that he doesn’t think BF6 “needs Nicki Minaj,” as the team looks to “keep it real.”

Now, with launch just weeks away, the devs have taken another sly dig at their rival in a new trailer.

BF6 mocks CoD crossovers in new trailer with Zac Effron

The live-action trailer released on September 28 begins with four celebrities exiting a vehicle, posing as one of Battlefield’s four classes. Actor Zac Efron slipped into the Assault role, while basketball star Jimmy Butler, country singer Morgan Wallen, and UFC fighter Paddy Pimblett played Engineer, Support, and Recon, respectively.

But an epic introduction, the group is quickly blown up by a rocket launcher, before a more realistic-looking bunch of soldiers move in. One even asks, “Who was that?” before another replies, “Doesn’t matter.”

This is clearly a not-so-subtle joke about the way that Call of Duty often markets its games in the lead-up to launch and in the months that follow. To really hammer it home, the trailer even uses the song Bullet with Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins, which was used in the Modern Warfare 2 (2022) reveal.

As you might expect, the video has received a mix of reactions depending on which of the fence players sit.

“Master level trolling against CoD. Brilliant,” said one reply, before another called it “absolute cinema.”

Meanwhile, some weren’t impressed and called for Battlefield 6 to carve out an identity of its own.

“So sad to see that their only selling point is that it’s not CoD,” said one CoD fan.

“Ripping on Call of Duty worked out well for Splitgate 2,” replied another, referencing 1047 Games CEO Ian Proulx’s comments about being “tired of playing the same Call of Duty every year,” before the game later returned to beta after a tough launch.