Last week I was: getting stuck into Battlefield 6, testing out weapons and all the new maps in the launch version.
This week I've been: trying to unlock every weapon in Battlefield 6 before Season 1.
It's been almost four years since the last Battlefield game, 2042, and nearly a decade since the last truly great one. The multiplayer FPS landscape has changed a lot in that time, flip-flopping on concepts like 'hero' characters, movement, and more, but Battlefield 6's insistence on returning to its series core was certainly the right thing to do. For one, it stole the Call of Duty Black Ops 7 beta's thunder, hitting a peak of 747k concurrent players on Steam alone.
Despite this sweeping success, one criticism is shouted louder than all else: "We want large maps". It was, rightly so, a contentious topic during the beta, and it's only worsened since then, now that we've had our hands on what Battlefield Studios considers to be a big map. As a series veteran, I think it's safe to say that none of these maps are particularly large, and I do hope we get more diversity going forward. That said, I'd say Liberation Peak, Mirak Valley, and New Sobek City do get close.
The thing is, I don't think that really matters, at least for now. Sure, large-scale battles are at the heart of Battlefield, but so is the raw intensity. When I think back to Battlefield 3 and 4, and especially Battlefield 1, a defining factor is how cinematic and bombastic it feels, recalling maps like Damavand Peak (on Rush), Seine Crossing, Siege of Shanghai, and Pearl Market. To me, that's also why more grounded settings work best for the series rather than 2042's oddly light-hearted vibe.
That feeling of scrambling to find cover inside a building as it's being pelted by a tank and its facade collapses, or multiple squads coming together to push up through city streets, explosions pockmarking the ground and obscuring vision: that's all here.
Some of the most fun and intense moments I've had in the series to date have come on the Siege of Cairo map, on Conquest of all things, not even the more focused Breakthrough mode. Vehicles are limited to just tanks, but there's a special feeling behind using your armour as cover as your team advances through tight alleys where enemies could be hiding anywhere, ready to rain down hell. And then your tank starts blasting away at the buildings, devouring the enemies inside as rubble showers everyone.
As much as the Breakthrough mode is generally quite unbalanced, the first sector of Mirak Valley, with its collapsed towers and trenches, reminds me so vividly of the First World War arenas of Battlefield 1. You're sliding around in mud trying to get in and out of trenches to push the objectives, taking advantage of any openings you can find.
To put it simply, there's nothing else like it. And when you pair such strong map flow with impactful gunplay (especially once the bullet bloom and hit registration issues are resolved), destruction, vehicles, large teams, and great explosion effects, it's hard not to feel the intensity of it all.
With that said, I am hoping that Battlefield 6's post-launch support includes more of the larger warzones that have come to define the series and show off the full vehicle sandbox. Season 1 kicks off on October 28 with the Blackwell Fields map, which includes both air and land vehicles, and certainly looks a lot more open. Then, on November 18, we'll see Eastwood, another medium to large map set in California suburbs, which supports land vehicles and helicopters. Of course, there'll also be new guns and more added, too.
You know what, give me a remaster of BF1's Sinai Desert and BF3's Gulf of Oman, and I'll be set forever.
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