Former Blizzard president says Battlefield 6 will ‘boot stomp’ the ‘lazy’ Call of Duty and force it to get better
“Call of Duty has gone downhill for years”, former Xbox exec Mike Ybarra says
Former Blizzard president and Xbox executive Mike Ybarra says he expects Battlefield 6 to “boot stomp” Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 this year.
Ybarra, who served various roles at Microsoft for 20 years (culminating in a role as corporate vice president on Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass) before becoming Blizzard president for three years, took to X to give his views on the upcoming return of the Call of Duty vs Battlefield online FPS clash.
According to Ybarra’s prediction, Battlefield 6 will come out on top, but he believes this can only be a good thing for Call of Duty because it will force it to improve.
“Battlefield will boot stomp [Call of Duty] this year,” Ybarra wrote. “But the real win here is [Call of Duty] won’t be lazy anymore, and we’ll all get better FPS games for it.”
When one follower suggested that 2016’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was disappointing but still outsold Battlefield 1, Ybarra replied that Activision‘s series has been getting worse since then, and claimed that a revitalised Battlefield will encourage improvements.
“[Call of Duty] has gone downhill for years since then,” Ybarra wrote. “It’s a mess. Cheating, heavy UI/install, rainbow colors. People are sick of it. Luckily [Battlefield] will force them to change.”
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.
— Mike Ybarra 😇 (@Qwik) August 8, 2025
Although Ybarra didn’t initially specify which metrics he would use to determine whether Battlefield or Call of Duty would ‘win’ this year’s battle, he later clarified after another follower said Battlefield 6 would never get a higher player count than the next Call of Duty game.
“What I meant by boot stomp is it will review better and drive urgency from the CoD team like never before,” Ybarra explained. “Player counts you can’t use because CoD is free on Game Pass. Which makes it interesting to see if it will sell close to CoD – maybe so.
“But I’m not wrong – more competition will make CoD better and I’m all for Battlefield doing that. It shouldn’t take that – CoD is lazy… 130GB+ installs, slow UI, incredible cheating on and on… they need to fix it. The only way they will is through competition.”
When challenged by another follower who claimed Ybarra was badmouthing Call of Duty because it’s owned by his former employer and he’s “bitter” about leaving, Ybarra replied that he was glad to have left Xbox when he did.
“[Call of Duty] will get better because [Battlefield] will be great,” he said. “You’re blind if you don’t see that. Bitter? No, glad I’m not part of the end of Xbox. Upset they can’t lead teams to make good games? Yes. Because they layoff all those people for leadership’s mishaps.”
Ybarra stepped down as president of Blizzard and left the company in early 2024, alongside news that Microsoft was cutting 1,900 staff across Xbox, Bethesda and its then newly acquired Activision Blizzard.
“As many of you know, Mike previously spent more than 20 years at Microsoft. Now that he has seen the acquisition through as Blizzard’s president, he has decided to leave the company,” Microsoft’s game content and studios president Matt Booty said in an internal memo at the time.
