Following the mixed reviews for Battlefield 2042 released in 2021, the long-awaited continuation of the renowned Battlefield franchise, Battlefield 6 was released on Friday, Oct. 10. Developed by Battlefield Studios, the team-based first person shooter involved multiple celebrated studios collaborating with the parent studio, including DICE, Criterion Games, Motive Studios and Ripple Effect Studios. Battlefield Studios is spearheaded by the critically acclaimed video game designer Vince Zampella, who is credited with creating the golden era of Call of Duty.
Battlefield 6 is set in a dystopian world, taking place across global conflict zones such as Brooklyn, New York, Southern California and Cairo, which makes for a diverse map rotation. The two factions you can play with are NATO and Pax Armata — however, the choice does not affect your gameplay whatsoever.
Due to 2042’s shaky release, Battlefield Studios was pressured to release a high-quality game. Expectations for Battlefield 6 were high after the game was announced on July 22, and preorders soared at 1.7 million. The game’s hype started to build as Battlefield Studios released teasers featuring the improvements made from 2042, along with changing the maximum players per game to the original 64 rather than the 128 player count.
Because the game is a simple team-based first-person shooter, it is geared towards casual gamers, and the gameplay is much smoother than previous iterations of the game. Like the previous Battlefield games, this one offers multiple multiplayer modes to suit different gamers’ playing styles. One type is objective-based, where players compete to take over zones placed across the map. There is also a kill-based mode, where the team with the most kills wins the round. The variety of modes, paired with the massive amount of detail put into the game’s map design, keeps players coming back for more, and reflects the high quality that made Call of Duty 1 and 2 the greatest shooter games of their time.
The actual gameplay exceeds expectations in the sense that most faults from 2042 were fixed, like the removal of specialists (no class system, no limitations to weapons and playstyle) which lots of people hated due to the limited team play that it offered. Battlefield 6 is the perfect blend of realistic and arcade first-person shooter genres. It perfectly syncs individual merit with team play. Players can capture objectives with their team while also taking out a tank by themselves that would otherwise be a nuisance to their team. It also allows for multiple styles of play, like being a support-only character and reviving people while remaining competitive on the round’s leaderboard. Every match has a round-based leaderboard based on points that players can earn from repairing vehicles, capturing objectives or getting kills. Despite this, it doesn’t directly reward your K/D (Kill to Death) ratio, something Call of Duty and other first-person shooter games reward heavily. So, while games like Call of Duty might reward players who only focus on their K/D ratio, Battlefield 6 pushes players to play with your team, and it rewards you heftily when players actually do. For example, one kill gives you 100 points towards your overall score, but killing a player while defending an objective can give you an extra bonus and elevates your score more.
The game is well-rounded in terms of tone and feel, incorporating various realistic visuals and a high level of interactivity on the map. For example, you can destroy entire buildings where “campers” — people who play selfishly and stick to one spot — frequent, altering the map for the entire duration of the game. The game’s physics engine is top-notch, and when combined with the incredibly realistic audio, it makes players feel like actual soldiers on the battlefield, fighting for survival. In big fights to capture an objective, the amount of bullets whizzing past as players scan for enemies makes your heart race. Battlefield 6 truly is unique in how it captivates the player into a sense of freedom and patriotism as you gun down the enemy alongside your teammates, and that’s where it shines above any other first-person shooter game.
After the beta was released on August 9-10, many Battlefield fans were overjoyed with the overall experience and gameplay, especially considering the game’s origins. Battlefield 6 was developed by EA, known for creating games with clear pay-to-win mechanics, such as Madden NFL. Despite this, Battlefield 6 had none of that, and it showed. According to Steam Charts, which counts a game’s players, Battlefield 6 had a peak player count of 656,000, breaking Battlefield’s competitor Call of Duty’s record of 488,000 peak players.
Although realistic, the overload of settings that need to be tweaked or adjusted to match a person’s play style is annoying because people can’t properly play the game without feeling overwhelmed. Not only do players have to go through multiple guides, Reddit posts and YouTube videos to find obscure settings like camera shake that improve gameplay, but it’s also so nuanced that a lot of settings need to be changed based on feel. Many players simply want to play the game for the first time, experiment with the sensitivity, and go into a match and have fun. This is an overall negative for the game, and the only other significant fault was in the games coding for bloom, or sometimes called as bullet spread.
Battlefield 6’s guns have intentional bloom after you shoot a few bullets, which reflects the behaviors of real life guns. Although it is realistic, there were many complaints due to blooming inconsistencies after firing. The issue was in the games hotfix after a beta bug where excessive bloom got fixed was found to create more problems. For some players, the bloom would not reset after pausing shooting for a brief period, causing bloom to transfer over. However, right after addressing this issue, the developers are already finding a fix. This sets a new precedent in the gaming industry, as most games can go months without crucial bug fixes and affect player experiences over time.
Overall, the game exceeded expectations, and despite the overwhelming number of settings presented to the player at the start, the basic concept of the game was executed perfectly. The attention to detail was superb, and combined with its simplicity, it’s a great game to relax and play after a long day.
Rating: 4.5/5
