Battlefield 6 is finally upon us, and the release of this game feels like it was a long time coming. Although the Battlefield series has been ongoing for many years now, I certainly felt like the identity of Battlefield has wavered. As a long-time Battlefield fan, I yearned for the combat and progression systems that I enjoyed from Battlefield 3 and 4, along with the compelling single-player campaigns that the Bad Company subseries gave us. All these years later, I think Battlefield 6 has arrived as a return to form for the franchise in gameplay, features, and experiences.
Battlefield 6 is what players get when a franchise returns to its roots the right way. From the get-go, the game offers a compelling single-player campaign with uniquely crafted levels that don’t feel tacked on from multiplayer maps. Multiplayer is back with the class-based systems—Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon; a playlist of returning classic modes and new ones; and a progression system that rewards players for taking on challenges and achieving feats, just like the good old days. As someone who’s returning to the Battlefield series after a few years on hiatus, I feel like Battlefield 6 is offering something that will both appeal to longtime fans and newcomers without compromising what I enjoy about this series.
Battlefield 6 Marks the Return of a High-Octane Single-Player Campaign
Like any other Battlefield game, if there’s a campaign to play on day one, I’m hopping right into that, even when multiplayer is so enticing. Despite a few gripes I had, the single-player campaign of Battlefield 6 is what I was hoping for, and it delivered an engaging narrative that had me hooked like it was a Netflix series. Set in the years 2027 and 2028, Battlefield 6’s gritty nine-mission campaign puts players in the boots of Dagger 1-3, an elite squad of US Marines that are taking the fight to Pax Armata—a massive private military corporation that’s taking advantage of the chaos left in the wake of a crumbling NATO alliance.
You’ll be playing as various members of Dagger 1-3 on their missions, and they make for a memorable cast of characters, as I had hoped. It’s not a ragtag group, but Dagger 13’s members—Haz Carter, Dylan Murphy, Simone “Gecko” Espina, Cliff Lopez, and Lucas Hemlock—are believable, realistic, and interesting. Inversely, the leader of Pax Armata, Kincaid, is a sinister antagonist who’s straight to the point with his goals, and you end up seeing him get closer to said goals through the sheer destruction and chaos that you’ll see in the campaign. One of my only gripes with the campaign is that I felt like it ended somewhat abruptly and open-ended.
I believe the structuring of the single-player campaign was just as important, however. The nine-mission campaign doesn’t drag on and overstay its welcome, and the actual levels themselves vary in gameplay. For example, one mission will have you storming the beaches into a coastline city in Eastern Europe with tanks and transport vehicles, while another will have you combatting insurgents at night in the streets of Cairo, all of which includes highly destructible environments with no perceivable effects on performance. In short, no two missions felt the same, and this was probably the strongest campaign that an EA-published shooter has had since Titanfall 2.
What’s more, the campaign offers four difficulty settings, including the returning Veteran difficulty and an even tougher Hardcore difficulty with no revives from your squad mates. I stuck with Regular to get my feet wet with gunplay before diving into multiplayer, and this difficulty option proved to be a sweet spot in terms of balance. Enemies can shoot you down rather quickly, but if you use Squad Orders to engage to position your squad mates in favorable positions, you can come out on top in the campaign, no sweat. As a result, the campaign is a good avenue for familiarizing yourself with some of Battlefield’s updated gunplay mechanics and features before applying them in multiplayer.
I also appreciate that there are a lot of unlockables in the campaign, thanks to the returning collectible dog tags and a number of different gameplay challenges. The rewards from completing these challenges include XP boosts, weapon camos, multiplayer icons, and more for multiplayer. If you’re just jumping into Battlefield for the first time, there’s certainly good replay value in going back into the campaign at a higher difficulty and knocking out those challenges. There’s also the option to uninstall the campaign entirely once you’re done with it, which saves you some storage space.
A Solid Multiplayer Suite
Battlefield’s lasting impact lies in its multiplayer, and I’ve spent countless hours playing Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, and Battlefield 4 to know that a good multiplayer component will give a game legs to stand on for many years. I think Battlefield 6’s multiplayer gave me what I was missing with some of the previous entries in the series and sticks the landing pretty well.
Battlefield 6 presents a variety of “All-Out Warfare” multiplayer modes that franchise faithfuls know and love, including Conquest and Rush. Breakthrough is also present as an updated variant of Conquest, where Attackers press against the line of Defenders, and Escalation is another mode that takes the core of Conquest’s objective-based gameplay and turns it up a notch with increasingly intense areas of combat. Battlefield 6 also includes a number of shooter-staple modes, including Team Deathmatch, Domination, and King of the Hill, all of which are presented in the multiplayer subsection of the main menu. There’s also a Server Browser for additional modes, which comes into play with Portal and other curated experiences. I think the menus here are fine, but I think it can be cumbersome to navigate while trying to get to the mode you want.
You’ll also immediately notice the aforementioned classes in the loadouts menu, which also appears as you prepare for battle after matchmaking. Each class is tuned to fulfill certain objectives in combat and provide a sturdy backbone to the team. Assault is focused on clearing out infantry; Support sustains the fight with heals, revives, and ammo refills; Engineers repair allied vehicles and clear paths by destroying enemy vehicles; Recon disrupts enemy operations and picks off enemies from afar.
Although the class-based system of Battlefield is second nature at this point, there are “Training Paths” that can be unlocked by completing Assignments, which are specialized challenges for each class. Essentially, you can unlock a more specialized version of the class and create your own custom version if the right rank or assignment completion requirements are met. The core functions of each class, including their respective gadgets, are maintained, but the added customization does let you experiment more if you have a specific playstyle in mind. Personally, I don’t mind this level of customization, as long as the classes continue to maintain their key roles without any sort of major and disruptive changes in the future.
It’s worth noting that Battlefield 6’s playlists are open weapons by default, meaning that class weapons are interchangeable in all the modes I referenced earlier. This is likely where the critique for Battlefield 6 is going to be most prevalent, since the weapons that each class is proficient in are also synonymous with their identities. It’s no secret that a lot of Battlefield fans, including myself, are used to each class having its class-locked weapons and roles, since there is player agency in contributing and fulfilling your role. Fortunately, class-locked, or “closed,” weapons playlists will be available at launch, and I think it’s important that these modes are visible and easily selectable for players. I’m more of a traditional Battlefield player, so I’ll probably stick to using weapons that are meant for their classes instead of mixing and matching.
While playing in multiplayer during the online pre-launch sessions, I fell back to my old habits with SMGs and LMGs quite easily from past Battlefield games, and there are also a lot of revised and returning weapons. The RPK, L85, M39 EMR, and UMG-40 are among the many weapons that I once enjoyed in the past that I immediately recognized. Just like in the previous games, you can level up each weapon’s Mastery Rank to unlock more attachments and earn Badges, which can be displayed on your player card.
The Kinesthetic Combat System of Battlefield 6 Promotes Seamless Gameplay
That being said, Battlefield 6’s Kinesthetic Combat System feels amazing to play, and it’s a natural evolution of the classics I played all those years ago. Gunplay feels snappy and satisfying, and the map variety is really great at launch with nine maps to choose from, including the fan-favorite Operation Firestorm map from Battlefield 3. I’m not particularly missing any old favorite maps here since Battlefield 6 feels like a breath of fresh air. The Conquest maps are huge and lead to some chaotic moments, while the smaller maps for Team Deathmatch and Domination offer shorter bursts of fun. This is a solid start, and there will be more maps, weapons, and gear coming in future updates, as expected with online shooters these days.
Further, Battlefield 6’s gunplay feels more fluid and engaging thanks to some notable gameplay additions. Classes have proficiencies and traits that make them better with their intended weapons and roles in certain scenarios. For example, an Engineer has better hip fire accuracy with SMGs, making them a fantastic option for those wanting to run and gun with a mouse and keyboard. Players can now drag downed teammates to safety for a revive; you can also lean from cover and corners to get the jump on enemies; weapons can be easily mounted; combat rolls let you dodge fire and reduce fall damage. The Kinesthetic Combat System is all cohesive.
Dubbed “Tactical Destruction,” Battlefield 6’s destructive elements are back, and such destruction continues to be a pastime of the series. Destruction is more reactive and strategic than I remember. It’s subtle at first, but you will certainly notice the attention to detail, such as the way walls are destroyed and unravel, exposing the ruptured materials. Destruction can be quite flashy, but in the heat of gunfights and battle, it becomes a background element that is just normal. That’s not a bad thing, though. Those who time their missiles and grenades at enemies can use destruction to their advantage to make walls and floors cave in, leading to environmental kills.
A Portal to Different, Optional Experiences
Portal is a part of the Battlefield 6 experience, and unfortunately, it wasn’t available in its full breadth before launch for testing. Essentially, Battlefield’s Portal Builder Tool is like a comprehensive Forge mode that lets players create the game modes, rule sets, map edits, and experiences they would like. The changes that can be made are as simple as tweaking rules to make a new game mode, such as the Infantry Breakthrough and Hardcore Conquest modes that the developers made in Portal, to as complex as moving, scaling, and duplicating elements and objects with a spatial editor.
I’m not the most creative or intuitive when it comes to modes like this, but Portal can let players’ imaginations run wild to create what they want, with limitations, of course. Anything made with Portal will be available as a “Community Experience” within the Community section, so players will be able to try them out as they wish, starting at a launch on October 10. Specifically, the in-game Server Browser will let you find those experiences outside the main playlists.
There’s an important distinction to be made when playing these creations, however. “Verified Community Experiences” will grant the same XP as Battlefield 6’s official modes, along with progression for challenges, badges, and other accolades. Verified creations also get the Backfill AI feature, which lets players play against AI bots, with real players replacing bots one by one as they join. “Custom Community Experiences” offer XP for time played, and there will be descriptions in the menu to show whether creations call into the Verified or Custom categories.
I wish I could have tried Portal for myself for review, but I do think that the feature is promising and could lead to some fun possibilities in Battlefield 6, such as limited-time game modes from the developers and intriguing creations for lobbies with friends. Personally, I’m more into playing the creations rather than spending the amount of time it would take to make something really worth playing in my eyes.
A Fully-Fledged and Optimized Game
I played Battlefield 6 on Steam, and I was quite surprised by how optimized the game is on PC. Everything just works without a hitch, and I really only spent about a minute or two with the in-game settings. I didn’t experience crashes or any other oddities that I look out for when playing games for review, and online connectivity seems really good and responsive, though I can’t fully judge it since there was only a light load on servers that could be hosting millions of players at once. Battlefield 6 is one of the most optimized games I’ve played all year on PC, so I expect the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions to hold up quite well, especially with the relatively lower-end specifications that the game requires.
Aside from performance, there are a number of useful accessibility features that players might like. These options include customizable subtitles, hold-to-toggle options, granular icon and text color customization, and a tinnitus relief filter, to name a few. In terms of features, I think Battlefield 6 is a very thoughtful and comprehensive entry in this regard, and I hope the developers at Battlefield Studios build even further to accommodate more players.
Moreover, Battlefield 6 uses Javelin Anticheat, which was built from the ground up under EA’s watch and has already been used in Battlefield Labs. It obviously remains to be seen if this will be effective against cheaters over the long term, but I don’t think it had any conflicts with software or negative performance impacts during my playthrough, which is a great sign.
Battlefield is Finally Back with Battlefield 6
It’s been years since I last delved into a Battlefield game or felt invested in a first-person shooter of this caliber. By the end of the multiplayer sessions, I can safely say this, though: Battlefield is back. Battlefield 6 feels like a true return to form for the series, where gameplay is key, and it’s incredibly fun. Sure, this game does play it safe, but this is the Battlefield I remember, and it feels like a homecoming of sorts. Battlefield 6 is a reminder that a fun shooter with thoughtful campaign and multiplayer components can still work in 2025, and there’s no need to break a formula that was so proven already back then.
Of course, the future of Battlefield 6 is the most important part. The first season of Battlefield 6 will release on October 28, so there will be time to stew with this current version of the game before new content arrives. The launch patch, which was outlined by Battlefield Studios on social media, has a lot of good and quick changes that were requested by players. One of my biggest gripes involves the visibility of closed weapons modes, and it seems like the developers are also listening to remedying that as well. Regardless, Battlefield 6 sets the new standard for the series, and I hope it only goes up from here.
Disclaimer: EA provided a PC (Steam) key of Battlefield 6 for review purposes.
