The first weekend of the Battlefield 6 open beta ended early this morning and I found the game made quite an impression on me. The last few iterations of Battlefield felt soulless and completely turned me off of the franchise. The games looked great, and the core mechanics felt intact but there was something off. There was a certain intensity and chaos in games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 1943 that made for an extremely compelling experience. Playing these “prime” Battlefields, the primary objective always felt like survival. Unlike Call of Duty or Halo, where skill and individual performance were incentivized, you felt as if you did well in a game of Battlefield if you contributed to the team in some way, whether it was fixing a tank or sacrificing yourself to revive a downed teammate. Battlefield made a name for itself simulating large scale combat, incentivizing teamwork, and fostering a wide variety of playstyles. Somewhere along the way (Battlefield 4), Battlefield stopped feeling like Battlefield and more like a Call of Duty competitor. I’m glad to say that Battlefield 6 is a return to form.

First off, the audio in Battlefield 6 is incredible. Wearing a nice pair of headphones, I found myself developing a thousand-yard stare as I heard the roar of an RPG to my left and a downed teammate screaming for a medic on my right. Battlefield 6 has the signature Battlefield audio which takes the intensity up to 11. Battlefield 6 also feels like one of the first console games to truly feel “next gen.” The PS4 and Xbox One simply refuse to die, and developers have been reluctant to go all in on developing a game for next gen hardware. Props to Battlefield 6 for going all in, this game looks incredible and even the beta ran relatively smoothly with few graphical hiccups or dips in the frame rate. The overall look of this game is top notch.

The combat truly feels like a return to form with a Bad Company 2 levels of destruction and weapons that pack a punch. The weapons in this game feel distinct and weighty. However, I did find that players were a bit less spongey than previous Battlefield games. It may be that I haven’t played a Battlefield game in a long time, but I felt as if I was killing and getting killed faster than previous games. The gunplay felt good, but it did feel a little more Call of Duty-like with the amount of health players have. I also felt that Call of Duty seeped into the movement system. You can still feel the weight of your player when running or jumping, but the additions of sliding and dolphin diving felt a bit out of place in a Battlefield game. Watching some “pro” players online, it does seem as if the new movement and gunplay allows for a degree of MLG gaming that simply couldn’t be achieved in previous iterations. Overall combat feels crisp, but I hope that a bit more weight and health is added to bring back more of the traditional feel.

The three available maps all seemed good enough, I felt as if I was mostly queued in the close quarters maps, so I didn’t get a good sense of the large-scale combat. Something I did notice on the smaller close quarters maps was the lack of elevation change. These are dense, urban maps with large buildings, but you can’t get above the second story of any of these buildings. I felt these maps were missing a verticality that resulted in firefights in tight corridors were bullets and grenades were spammed. This was fun at times, but it created some standstills because there were no alternative elevated routes or flanks. Sniping was pretty much out of the question on these denser maps because of the lack of verticality and lack open sight lines. On the larger mountain map, however, it felt as if the entire horizon was filled with the glint of sniper scopes. It almost felt impossible to get around at times because of the constant threat of snipers. The maps available for the beta felt like extreme ends of the spectrum – two were extremely tight and one was wide open. Despite my complaints I enjoyed all of them and I’m excited to see the remaining online maps. 

Battlefield 6 really brought the mojo back. Playing with my friends, we were screaming for medics and yelling out which objective to target as we played. We had a blast playing together and were truly trying to win each round we played. We would alternate between classes based on the situation we found ourselves in, with no class feeling too powerful or completely useless. The sign of any good Battlefield game, I found I was rarely checking the scoreboard to see my score or K/D. All I cared about was winning and keeping my squad alive. I forgot how much I missed Battlefield until now, I’m so glad that it’s back.