Battlefield 6 Review

Battlefield’s tumultuous relationship with its player base after the heavily criticised release of 2021’s Battlefield 2042 has been interesting to witness from the outside. The game sparked criticism for several game design changes that removed or altered integral gears in the well-oiled Battlefield machine. Battlefield 6 steamrolls this misstep, with DICE returning the franchise back to its roots, providing an experience full of ambition, grit, and absolute warfare.

Battlefield 6 brings with it a Campaign mode and, of course, Multiplayer mode. This review is from the perspective of a newcomer to the franchise, having only dabbled in 2042. A campaign in first-person war shooters plays a pivotal role in how I feel about the overall presented package. It shouldn’t feel tacked on for content, but instead should present an entertaining and thrilling companion piece to the Multiplayer mode to present a unified product. Battlefield 6 presents a focused and cohesive Battlefield experience that had me in awe from the start.

Set in 2027, Battlefield 6’s campaign places you into the boots of members of Dagger 13 – a unit with one overarching mission: stop Pax Armata, a private military corporation hungry for global power. The campaign follows one singular narrative across multiple continents and opens with a glorious cinematic mission that sees Dagger 13 in perilous circumstances. 

The campaign deploys a tremendous degree of ambition, backed by a healthy slathering of varied mission types and enormous set pieces. As a player who prefers story-focused experiences in games, a campaign, especially in a first-person shooter war game, needs to be engaging, and Battlefield 6’s does it quite sufficiently. 

The action is relentless, only stopping for brief moments of reprieve. The cast does a great job at selling these moments, though I did struggle to gain an emotional connection to most of these characters. A little more character development or depth to these characters definitely would have elevated the overall experience.

Battlefield 6 excels when it comes to the heftiness of the weapons you wield. The precision and accuracy feel spot on and forgiving at times. The sound design brings an immense weight to these guns that makes you feel like a badass with every bullet you spray. 

What truly impressed me during my time with Battlefield 6 was the new and improved destruction mechanics. Whether I was taking down the Pax Armata in the campaign or taking down my peers in Multiplayer, it always felt like I was in the middle of a war zone actively unfolding around me, rather than just scripted debris waiting for me to progress to a specific point. Battlefield 6 feels ridiculously immersive and showcases the grit and destructive power of war effortlessly.

What most Battlefield players look forward to the most is the Multiplayer mode. In Battlefield 6’s multiplayer mode, nothing stands out as revolutionary for the genre. But if the wheel ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But some key changes made in Battlefield 6’s predecessor have been reverted to what players find works for the series.

Battlefield 2042’s Specialist system takes a backseat in favour of the classic four Classes: Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon. Each class comes with its own signature weapon set, class-exclusive gadgets and traits. The classes feel extremely balanced and offer certain advantages to your own playstyle. As someone who plays a little more passively in online shooters, I found the Support role to be aligned with how I play. The Support class offers supply crates, deployable cover, faster revives, and additional perks for LMG use.

A new movement system called Kinetic Combat changes the way multiplayer matches are played. Movement feels fluid and tactical at every moment. A new Drag & Revive system allows you to do exactly that, drag your team mates out of the heat of the war and revive them while doing so. It provides a risk and reward situation – as reviving makes you vulnerable to getting shot, but saving your teammate helps keep the scoreline at a plateau. 

The destruction I mentioned earlier plays a major role in your team’s victory. Blowing up your enemy’s defences can easily turn the tide in the war. Maps at the end of a match rarely look identical to what they did at the beginning. There’s a tactical approach to just about every facet of Battlefield 6’s multiplayer, one I admire greatly. Becoming a bullet sponge just won’t cut it, and working as a cohesive unit feels like the only route to success.

The maps I played during the review period included areas existing in the Campaign, including Gibraltar’s Iberian Offensive and Saint’s Quarter, and New York’s Manhattan Bridge and Empire State. Every map I played felt so expertly designed for multiplayer modes like TDM, King of the Hill, and Domination; it’s hard to pinpoint any major design flaws at this stage.

Progression is a major factor in live service games like Battlefield 6, and there’s a lot to work towards here. Through completing challenges and general gameplay, you earn XP to level up and unlock cosmetic items such as outfits and player cards. 

Battlefield Portal is the community creation portal that allows players to create custom maps and modes. The depth of Portal is magnificent, with an extensive toolset including spatial editing to make phenomenal changes to existing Battlefield maps and how the game is played. At the time of review, Battlefield Portal was not accessible, but I have no doubt we will see endless amounts of community-made content that will shine alongside the game, similar to what we see in Fortnite.

Battlefield 6 is a triumphant return to form for the series, one that will have that will create a loyal player base that will support the game for years to come. This year is the first year that Battlefield and Call of Duty have launched in the same year since 2021, and from my time with Battlefield 6, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is going to have to elevate the pillars it stands on to win the war.