It's hard to deny just how important it is for DICE to get Battlefield 6 right. The storied franchise is running on fumes after high-profile back-to-back letdowns. Battlefield V and Battlefield 2042 both disappointed at launch, with 2042 pretty much abandoning most of what made Battlefield special to chase trends. Fans were furious, few people stayed to play long-term and what was left is a franchise’s reputation in tatters. Battlefield 6 aims to amend all that and win fans back with a back-to-basics approach. DICE and its partners are promising a new game more in line with Battlefields 3 and 4, less trend chasing and a greater emphasis on the features that make Battlefield special. We got to go hands-on with Battlefield 6’s multiplayer to see if DICE is on the right track.

What makes a Battlefield a Battlefield

Battlefield 6 takes the franchise back to a modern-day setting, much like Battlefields 3 and 4. The game pits the remnants of NATO against Pax Armata, a private military company that’s coalesced power in the fractured world of Battlefield 6. While we didn’t learn anything new about the campaign, the modern-day setting was on full display in multiplayer with DICE pulling from locations across the globe for their maps. Cairo, New York City, Gibralta, and more locations. 9 maps (8 new, 1 remake) will be available at launch with Conquest, Rush, Breakthrough, Team Deathmatch, Squad Deathmatch, Domination, King of the Hill, and a new mode, Escalation, playable from the get-go. That’s all great, but any Battlefield could be modern and have good launch content on paper.

What makes a Battlefield game great has shifted slightly over the years, but at its core, a Battlefield needs to deliver on that feeling of all-out-warfare, class-based gameplay backed up by stellar gunplay and destruction. Great entries like Bad Company 2, 3, 4 and 1 took all three elements and delivered unique experiences suited for each of their settings. Weaker entries like Hardline, V, and 2042, at least at launch, abandoned one, two or all of these pillars. It's through these key pillars that DICE is following with Battlefield 6.

Yep, that's warfare

Battlefield 6’s approach to all-out-warfare is a back-to-basics approach. Map sizes have been shrunk back down to 64-players, particular attention has been given to designing maps with strong points of conflict where both infantry and vehicles can succeed, and large open spaces are cut down tremendously. While we only truly got to test out two maps (Siege of Cairo and Liberation Peak), both were especially great in Conquest. Cairo in particular featured dense environments and alleyways that were great for infantry, outside lanes perfect for vehicles and a center area where both could clash.

The maps already feel like a massive improvement over 2042 with the potential of becoming all-time greats, but some tweaks are needed, especially when playing other modes. Breakthrough worked well on Cairo with both sides feeling well-balanced. Liberation Peak, on the other hand, is a bloodbath for attackers. Every match on Liberation Peak either ended with the Attackers unable to take the first objective, or falter later on, because so many resources were spent getting that first point. There also appeared to be general spawn issues, particularly in smaller game modes, that will hopefully be smoothed out at launch. No one likes spawning right in front of an enemy and getting instantly melted.

Something plays familiar here...

One of 2042’s deadliest mistakes was nixing the class system in favor of Specialists, a move that DICE is walking back with. Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon are all back with a stronger emphasis on gadgets. While DICE has brought them back and assigned them specific jobs in battle, they’re leaving the open weapon system of 2042 intact (there will be playlists at launch and in beta that lock weapons to classes). DICE’s reasoning is that they’re hoping for a wider diversity of class usage if players don’t feel locked out of their favorite weapon category. If that was their goal, at least during the hands-on session, it's not working with lobbies still heavily dominated by Assault and Support players. Still, the return of the class system is a huge win and brings importance back to squad and team synergy.

Gunplay has also gone back-to-basics, though maybe not in all the right ways. While DICE clearly wants the gameplay to echo that of Battlefields 3 and 4, but in practice it actually feels more like another game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). Like Modern Warfare (2019), Battlefield’s gameplay is slower and more tactical, favoring careful movements over twitchy, fast-paced moves. The Kinesthetic Combat System adds many similar movement mechanics seen in Modern Warfare, including the ability to clamber over almost any part of the environment and mount your weapons, though tactical sprint is thankfully absent. There's a learning curve, especially if you’ve been playing the fast-paced Modern Warfare III or Black Ops 6 the past few years, but it’s a nice change of pace.

Though gunplay feels similar to Modern Warfare (2019), the pace does feel like a callback to slower movement of Battlefields 3 and 4 where every decision had to be deliberate. You couldn’t just slide or dive sideways out of harms way. Guns feel punchy and deadly. Overall, it’s a good system that works well for Battlefield 6 and is infinitely better than 2042’s floaty mechanics, but there are caveats. Many of the issues players had with Modern Warfare (2019) and Modern Warfare II show up in Battlefield 6, including an over-reliance on campaign (destruction does alleviate this somewhat). Probably the worst feature carried over, however, are footsteps. Much like the Infinity Ward titles, footsteps in Battlefield 6 are loud, something that will likely promote the camping playstyle that infested those games. DICE really needs to rethink this.

Building go boom

What Battlefield 6 absolutely nails is destruction. Finally, after 15 years, we have a true evolution of Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s destruction. Battlefield 3 and 1 had some destruction, Battlefield 4 had setpiece moments dubbed Levolution, and V and 2042 had minimal evolution. Battlefield 6 goes all in, giving players the ability to completely level small structures and destroy large chunks of major buildings. For example, on Cairo, you can tear down whole facades, blow apart ceilings and open walls to create new strategic ways to deal with enemies.

Dubbed Tactical Destruction feels like an organic evolution of what Bad Company 2 brought all those years ago. It took a while to get it, but it was worth the wait. Even though there are still limits on what can be destroyed, none of the matches played ever felt the same. Now we just have to hope the same level of Tactical Destruction is applied to each and every map.

DICE has one job with Battlefield 6: delivering a proper, functioning Battlefield title. That means all the core Battlefield pillars are accounted for, trend chasing is kept to a minimum and it’s fun to play no matter what map or mode you play. From what we’ve played so far, DICE is on the right track with their back-to-basics approach.

9 maps (8 new, 1 remake) will be available at launch with Conquest, Rush, Breakthrough, Team Deathmatch, Squad Deathmatch, Domination, King of the Hill, and a new mode, Escalation, playable from the get-go.

Battlefield 6 feels more in line with Battlefields 3 and 4, delivering modern-day all-out-warfare, a class-based gameplay system and high levels of destruction. There’s trend chasing when it comes to the gunplay, but in the grand scheme of things, feels minimal considering how many trends 2042 chased. Not everything is ready, especially when it comes to spawns and footsteps, but Battlefield 6 is on the right path.

Battlefield 6 launches October 10 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The open beta takes place August 9-10 and August 14-17.