How Battlefield 6 Is Learning From The Past: “It’s Not Just A Carbon Copy”

The Battlefield 6 team opens up about rebuilding core combat, community feedback, and why this entry is built for everyone.

For a franchise with over two decades of history, Battlefield has never stood still for long. As the series returns with Battlefield 6, the team at EA and Battlefield Studios are delivering a multiplayer experience that they believe captures not only the core of what makes Battlefield unique, but what makes it fun: at scale, with polish, and with the community deeply in mind.

Blunt sat down with David Sirland, Lead Producer on Battlefield, and Alexia Christofi, Producer at DICE during the global Battlefield 6 Multiplayer Reveal event in Los Angeles to get inside the game’s development and the philosophy driving this massive multiplayer comeback – and how looking back at the franchise’s past successes and failures has been key to the development journey for the upcoming installment.

Encouraging Risk Without Breaking the Game

From the outset, both Sirland and Christofi are clear: risk is essential to the DNA of Battlefield, but it’s managed risk. As Sirland explains, “I love risk. I mean, I worked on this franchise for a long time. I’ve always been the one to push risk, but in a way where we can bring it home.”

“I think that’s why we do stuff like Battlefield Labs…It’s basically a risk dampener.”

These pre-release environments, like Battlefield Labs, allow the team to experiment aggressively without destabilizing the live game. “It enables that, but it also then enables a higher quality game, and, you know, easier releases and a bunch of other good stuff,” Sirland says. “The best ideas come from passionate teams that are enabled and feel safe doing that kind of thing.”

Christofi adds that the balance comes from the team’s diversity. “We’re a really good mix of Battlefield veterans and people who may be a bit new into the franchise…we will try loads of different things, but then we need to balance it against what’s core to the game.”

When asked what feels new for Battlefield 6, Sirland points to a back-to-basics approach that focused first on foundational gameplay. “We need to get that to the best level we ever have. Like world class gunplay, better than we’ve ever done in Battlefield, but [also] better than everyone else.”

“We need to start with that, because at the end of the day, it’s a shooter,” he says.

That approach influenced everything else: vehicles, destruction, map design. “Nothing was tacked on,” Christofi adds. “We needed combat to feel great. We need destruction to feel great. We need the classes to feel really, really great.”

The franchise is also finally unified behind a clear direction. “We also got a really defined franchise vision for what our pillars are and what they’re not, which we’ve been lacking in the past,” Sirland says. “It’s even easier then to sort of innovate within these lanes… without…breaking the paradigms of the franchise.”

Success & Failure

For both Sirland and Christofi, success isn’t just about units sold. “For me… the biggest metric is seeing people engaging with me and excited about it,” says Christofi. “Not even just excited about it, just wanting to give feedback about it.”

Sirland says success means creating a game that resonates with players globally – noting that with cultural differences across the world and other factors mean every player wants something slightly different from their Battlefield experience to make it enjoyable (and sometimes, these things are in opposition with other player’s wants).

Sirland doesn’t shy away from the franchise’s bumpy past. “I’ve worked on a Battlefield before that had a troubled launch, right? And we had to fix it.” He credits the CTE (Community Test Environment) with helping the team course-correct – and with establishing a new way of working to bring players a polished experience while also community building

“I always, since then, wanted to push [CTE and Battlefield Labs]. I tried for every Battlefield I worked on. We should do this pre game… I want to make that the standard.” He says the model doesn’t just improve games, it builds stronger community relationships and opens the door to hiring passionate players. “We have lots of people that we hired from that period that were part of that. They were just so into it, we basically had to hire them.”

For Christofi, another key lesson was in honoring the franchise’s roots. “When you veer too much in a different direction with a title… the feedback we get is very clear of what people really don’t like,” she says. “Let’s take the things that we know people love about previous titles and just do that really well.”

A Battlefield For New & Old Players

Navigating nostalgia is a balancing act for any long-running franchise. Christofi shares a recurring phenomenon: “Everyone’s like, ‘so and so is my favorite Battlefield.’ And I’m like, ‘is that the first one you played?’ And nine times out of 10, [it is].”

Sirland sees that as both a challenge and a design opportunity. “You have to not hit all of their wants. We want to hit enough for this new game to feel like it’s for them as well… [but] it’s its own thing too, right? It’s not just a carbon copy of something we’ve done in the past.”

Polish & Refinement

Asked how polish for Battlefield 6 is defined internally, Sirland focuses on feel. “We call it the Kinesthetic Combat System… you can’t really put that [in a trailer], because it is in how it feels and how it teaches you through nudging you as well.”

“It’s like the fluff on top, but it’s really important fluff,” he says. He points to feedback around Battlefield 4’s visceral recoil animation that messed with aim, but didn’t impart any in-game information to the player. Now, players can move their head and feel how the recoil will impact their shots through smart game design, allowing them to learn the system in an intuitive but subtly interwoven way.

Sirland says the developer responsible for this is a former dancer on the team, and it shows. “There is really a choreography of all of these technical systems into an experience.”

Looking To Launch

Christofi lights up when talking about the upcoming open beta. “We’re really putting our money where our mouth is… because we’re proud of what we’ve done.”

Both are eager to see what the community does with the overhauled Portal custom sandbox mode specifically. “I know they will make crazy stuff,” says Sirland. “If we’re lucky, this is the next DOTA or whatever.”

Whether the game is the next DOTA or not, Battlefield 6 is nearly in players’ hands. The open beta set to kick off in early August before the October 10 launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.