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| The single player campaign follows the exploits of Dagger 13 |
| Quick Info | |
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| Reviewed by: | Mark Goninon |
| Developer: | Battlefield Studios |
| Publisher: | EA |
| Release Date: | 10 Oct 2025 |
| Time played: | 219 hours |
Battlefield 6 is the next iteration in the long-running Battlefield series of multiplayer military FPS games that started way back in 2002 with Battlefield 1942. Yes, the numbering is a bit weird, considering the last game was Battlefield 2042, and Battlefield 5 was stylised as Battlefield V (due to it being set in World War II), and the game before Battlefield V wasn't Battlefield 4 either, it was Battlefield 1. So, weird numbering aside, this is the most recent offering from DICE and a number of other development studios collectively known as "Battlefield Studios". Under the leadership of the late Vince Zampella, DICE focused on the traditional multiplayer experience, Ripple Effect worked on the battle royale component called RedSec, Criterion worked on the single player campaign and Motive Studios assisted with the single player campaign and multiplayer maps.
Where Has All the NATO Gone?
After trying their hand at a futuristic hero shooter/FPS hybrid complete with giant maps and tornadoes, DICE decided it was time to return to the modern shooter setting of BF2, BF3 and BF4. Considering current world events, Battlefield 6's conflict may seem a little on the nose, as it's between NATO and a PMC called Pax Armata shortly after many discontent European nations decided to leave NATO. I tried to play the single player campaign to learn more about the game's lore and this is the first instance where it becomes obvious the workload for the game was split: the single player campaign is in a different executable so when you launch it from the main menu, it actually closes Battlefield 6's multiplayer client and opens the single-player component. It's a bit strange and not a seamless process but it seems to work, and on the plus side since they are separate components you can actually uninstall the single player campaign once you're done with it (saving up some precious disk space).
Your first mission takes you to the start of the conflict between NATO and Pax Armata where Pax Armata troops are coming in to Georgia to relieve NATO soldiers. They seem to be in a bit of a hurry though and shortly after NATO is attacked by Pax Armata, but not only in Georgia: the NATO Secretary General is assassinated by Pax Armata which results in the aforementioned disillusionment by several European nations and them withdrawing from the NATO alliance.
In terms of gameplay, the single player campaign feels like your typical military shooter. You'll skip to different characters at different times in the war and if the goal of the campaign is to act like a kind of tutorial for multiplayer (i.e. teaching you how to revive teammates, snipe, fight in tanks, repair vehicles, etc.) along with giving you a dose of the lore, it more or less succeeds. The campaign is buggy though, and I had to restore the mission from the last checkpoint a couple of times due to events not triggering, meaning I couldn't progress. Your AI squadmates aren't very situationally aware either, often walking past enemies, oblivious to any danger.
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| Each mission in the single player campaign will teach you how to use particular weapons, vehicles or abilities |
Mix 'n' Match
In terms of graphics, the game looks decent enough but despite my PC exceeding minimum system requirements with an okay amount of video card memory (12GB on my RTX 3060) the lag and framerate drops became so bad after a while it was unplayable. Even running on Low settings at 1920x1080 didn't help. So I had to find a solution. After some online sleuthing, I discovered that for a default installation, BF6 installs a High Definition (HD) texture pack and that the HD texture pack was mainly intended for those running the game on 4K monitors. For those running on 1080p (like myself), the HD texture pack provides negligible benefit in fidelity but removing it could result in lower VRAM usage which in turn meant it was less likely the CPU would have to handle any excess load (which would result in higher framerates). I'm not sure if it turned out to be the solution but I've noticed a marked improvement in performance so it's definitely something to try if you ever seem to have framerate issues.
Same Old Battlefield
For this iteration of Battlefield the devs stuck to the tried and true formulas of the previous games… well mostly. More extensive destruction makes a return to the series meaning you really can bring buildings down if snipers are starting to annoy you; split system air conditioning units can even be shot down which makes for some hilarious deaths. The Battlefield theme makes a triumphant and bombastic return thanks to the efforts of veteran composer Henry Jackman and Limp Bizkit (yes, you read that right, the nu metal band that millennials grew up with in the 90s) and along with familiar music comes familiar gameplay: all the typical cheese you can expect from Battlefield makes a return such as too many snipers, tanks camping on hills, and small infantry maps where shotguns dominate. In fact, the maps in BF6 are generally smaller than previous games and the combination of claustrophobic maps and an overabundance of AT mines that don't disappear means it's actually challenging playing with tanks and quite easy to get killed.
Ironically, by trying to distance itself gameplay-wise to its predecessor, BF2042, by going back to basics, sometimes BF6 feels like a cut-down version of BF2042. BF2042's maps were initially criticised as being too large, so they overcompensated and gave us small maps in BF6. BF2042 was criticised for being too much of a hero shooter so BF6 decided to remove gadgets specific to particular operators (although if you look carefully, you'll notice that the heroes from the previous game have just been repurposed as different characters in order to apply skins).
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| It wouldn't be a modern Battlefield game if you didn't have a whole of attachments for your guns |
It's the Little Things...
Most of the improvements to the game tend to be small, quality of life changes such as the addition of "Q" to quickly thank a teammate that revives you. I tend to be rather polite when playing Battlefield, always using the commo rose to thank my teammates but adding this feature definitely saves time. Speaking of reviving, you also don't need to hold the button to call for a revive anymore. Instead you can just toggle your state between calling for a revive or not.
The game also introduces new ways to create avenues of attack. Probably inspired by games like Rainbow Six Siege you're able to not only knock down walls with a sledgehammer, you can also place ladders to get to inaccessible places. Yes, this has resulted in some unintended consequences such as players exploiting the feature and ending up in places where nobody can reach them, but it's proven handy even when you're not trying to use the ladders to find the next fully sick sniping spot.
Besides traditional Battlefield modes like Conquest and Breakthrough, the game also offers a free-to-play component called RedSec. Here you're able to play Battle Royale (which I haven't really touched) as well as Gauntlet which is a tournament where the bottom two squads are eliminated after each round until the final. Each round offers different objectives such as arming M-COMs, securing data drives for drones or fighting in a tank battle.
There's definitely plenty of options available to you in terms of game experiences in BF6, it's just a matter of finding someone to play it with.
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| Gauntlet has your squad competing against others in an elimination style tournament |
Wouldn't be Battlefield without Bugs
The thing about live service games is that often things you critique are obsolete within a matter of weeks or months. On release, the game had incredibly buggy matchmaking which has always been a problem with the Battlefield series but not to this degree. In fact, I had many issues just playing a game together with my wife: many times I had to return to the main menu to reform squads and this wasn't always guaranteed to work either, which would require a restart of the game, or of the EA App, etc. Then there were the in-game bugs on release such as launching off into space whenever you tripped over a rock, or falling into the map or not being able to resupply explosives with supply bags. Over time, many of these have been thankfully fixed but some still remain and it's probably going to be a while before the game is in a stable state. Not the worst release of a Battlefield game, but still a buggy one.
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8
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BF6 tries its best to emulate the good ol' days of the modern warfare era of Battlefield. While it almost succeeds in this regard, its attempt to distance itself from BF2042 just makes its predecessor look like a more coherent experience despite Angel's incessant "Don't be sad, this is just how it works out sometimes." As the zoomers say, BF6 just needs some time to cook, some time for the most annoying bugs to be fixed. Some of the quality of life improvements and new features introduced to the game is reassuring and hopefully means more good stuff is in store for the future. |
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