For all the talk of taking Battlefield back to its roots, Battlefield 6’s multiplayer is actually pretty bold. Typically the formula has been instantly recognisable to FPS fans: bombastic action, giant team sizes, and a polyamorous partnership between boots-on-the-ground, vehicular, and aerial warfare. But while the moment-to-moment is as fun as it ever was – with the potential perhaps to reach new heights for the series – some of the new ideas from Battlefield Studios (the amalgam of several EA developers in DICE, Ripple Effect, Criterion and Motive that now all work on this series) leave me unconvinced.
Battlefield 6
- Developer: DICE, Battlefield Studios
- Publisher: EA
- Platform: Played on PC
- Availability: Out TBC 2025 on PC (Steam, Epic), PS5, Xbox Series X/S
During a fairly meaty preview event I was able to play across a variety of maps and game modes, all of which were, as you’d expect, a circus of exploding buildings and teammates’ machine-gun fire. The ruined streets of Cairo, for instance, are packed with small buildings and alleyways, home to ambushes aplenty. Empire State offered something totally different; a multi-storied firefight within a building mid-construction, the kind with squads shooting down from scaffolding as a lone player rushes up from behind, shotgun in hand.
Series staples like Conquest return, while genre-classics like Team Deathmatch and Dominion take you into these new warzones, either by slicing out a smaller section of the map where appropriate or throwing you in unburdened. All packed, as usual, with a type of wall-to-wall action that you can’t really find in other shooters – at least without venturing beyond the mainstream into something a little more hardcore. Action that often blasts through said walls.
These smaller versions of the map aren’t haphazardly portioned. Instead, smaller game modes shone a pleasing spotlight on the more intimate infantry bashes, leaving larger map types to serve up the vast, violent vehicular banquets. Both experiences bring their own appeal. Rushing house-by-house towards a capture point is atmospherically tense, as the quick time-to-kill makes infantry combat fast and flashy. Larger maps are home to ‘Battlefield moments’: a tank blows up ahead of you, for instance, as you dash between rocks and small shacks to avoid a deluge of rocket fire. Regardless of what map or game mode I played, all were wonderful playgrounds to blow stuff up in.