Electronic Arts and DICE have announced that their upcoming title Battlefield 6 will require players to enable Secure Boot on their Windows PCs before they can launch the game. This requirement is part of the game’s anti-cheat system designed to prevent rootkit-level cheats that manipulate the game at a deep system level.
Secure Boot is a security feature built into your computer’s UEFI/BIOS firmware that prevents unauthorized software from loading during startup. By requiring this feature, EA wants to block sophisticated cheating methods that have caused problems in online competitive games over the past few years.
Players attempting to start Battlefield 6 without Secure Boot enabled will receive an error message and won’t be able to play. This requirement will be in place from the ongoing beta tests through the final release.
For most gamers with recently purchased prebuilt computers, Secure Boot is probably already enabled out of the box. However, those with custom-built PCs, older hardware, or systems upgraded from older Windows versions might need to make some manual changes in their BIOS settings.
Some users may run into more steps. If Windows was installed using “Legacy BIOS” mode instead of UEFI, players might have to convert their disk from MBR to GPT format before Secure Boot can be switched on. Doing this can be a hassle and requires backing up data and using tools like Microsoft’s MBR2GPT utility.
Early reports from users say that just having Secure Boot “enabled” isn’t always enough. Some motherboards, especially from Gigabyte and Asrock, need Secure Boot to be fully “active,” which might mean installing secure boot keys or tweaking more settings.
The new rule comes after other competitive games made similar changes. Games such as Valorant have already added these kinds of security features, especially on Windows 11 where Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 are starting to become standard for gaming.
Maybe the biggest downside will hit Linux users, including anyone with a Steam Deck. The new rules basically mean Battlefield 6 won’t work on Linux or SteamOS, so the game will be Windows-only.
While EA has provided step-by-step instructions on turning on Secure Boot, all the technical hoops might still be tough for less experienced PC users. The company looks like it’s rolling out these changes early to make sure players aren’t caught off guard later, unlike what happened with Battlefield 2042 when anti-cheat rules were added after release.
