Battlefield 6 is a truly impressive game and a mighty return to form for the franchise, deserving of its flowers. At the same time, it is unfortunately hindered by tech issues, which make loading the game a battlefield in itself.
After an extended break from the franchise, developers DICE have finally released Battlefield 6, seemingly learning from the series’ misfires over the past decade.
In the lead-up to its release, Battlefield 6 was touted as a return to form for the franchise. The game would see the multiplayer shooter move away from its diverse time periods and bring it back to the present. This would also be the first Battlefield since 2013’s Battlefield 4 to feature a dedicated single-player campaign.
The sixth iteration of the venerable shooter is filled with series classics that both new and old fans will love. As you’d hope with the franchise, the maps are massive and intricately designed, and better yet, completely destructible. It’s common to see the building you’re camping in collapse under you as a tank unknowingly steamrolls through.
With lobby sizes of 64 players, there’s always an element of chaotic warfare unfolding in each game that adds a much-needed volatility to every match you join.
Sadly, due to tech issues, I didn’t get to experience much of the multiplayer components of the game. However, in the small moments I did manage to load into a lobby, it was hard to deny that the game is a refreshing palette cleanser after years of Call of Duty leading the online first-person shooter genre.
Battlefield 6’s modes are good, actually.
At launch, the game will release with four main modes.
The first and most popular is Conquest, which puts players in all-out war with tanks, jets, attack helicopters and more, all working together to capture points across the map. The team that runs out of resources first loses.
Breakthrough breaks up maps into sectors, which players will battle over one at a time. Attackers will push forward while Defenders hold the line.
Rush is for the Counter-Strike fans. Teams are divided into attackers and defenders, with the attackers tasked with planting bombs and the defenders with stopping them from being planted and diffusing any that are planted before they explode.
Escalation is a brand-new mode that pits two teams against each other, challenging them to capture strategic objectives and expand their territory. Whichever team controls the most points by the end of the session wins.
Battlefield 6 will launch with four additional modes that are staples in other shooters, including Squad Deathmatch, Domination, Team Deathmatch, and King of the Hill.
By far, Conquest was the most popular mode, and it’s easy to see why. Loading into lobbies with 64 players as you struggle to capture and maintain control of a point is such a satisfying gameplay loop. With the bonus of vehicles and destructive environments, every match felt different, and like there was always the opportunity to come back and retake the lead.
For me, nothing was more satisfying than playing an engineer and watching a tank roll up. In true 200 IQ fashion, watching a tank carrying multiple players roll over my pre-placed mines and explode, induced such a sick glee in me.
Unfortunately, I can’t speak too much about the other modes, given the limited time I had to playtest the game. However, if the entirety of Battlefield 6 were just Conquest with a fair rotation of maps, I would honestly still give DICE all the flowers the team deserves.
The first singleplayer campaign in years, and it’s…okay.
In the lead-up to the release of Battlefield 6, developers DICE were praising that they had created an all-new single-player campaign mode – the first in the series in over ten years to be exact.
So, with the devs making a big show of it, it’s only fair to go in expecting something extraordinary, right? Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Set in 2027, Battlefield 6 imagines a world in crisis following a high-profile assassination that fractures NATO. As global powers retreat, a private military company known as PAX ARMATA rises to fill the void. Players will fight on behalf of what remains of NATO in a conflict that spans continents and alliances.
Maybe it’s just that grand secret society military stories don’t land for me, but I found what was on offer to be fairly middling in a “meat and potatoes seasoned lightly with salt” kind of way.
A big criticism I have with the campaign is that the characters are fairly one-note, and don’t offer much to get relatively attached to. That’s not to say Battlefield 6 doesn’t try. I did appreciate how the characters would interact with one another and show off their military expertise. However, it’s in the small moments where they try to add individual character that it fell flat for me.
There aren’t really any personal stakes for the characters in the first half of the campaign, which makes it hard to identify and understand who these characters are and why they matter. The personalities also blend into the same form of “cool badass” (outside of the medic Lopez), so it’s hard to really tell them apart.
In saying that, there are aspects of the campaign I like.
What immediately jumped out to me was how the characters interacted like a well-trained squad. The way the characters peek around corners and form a line together looks real, and gave my non-military-trained brain the impression these were top-tier soldiers with convincing chemistry as a unit.
This will also play out in combat scenarios as your squad will also call out specialised units in the field and where to look out for them, like snipers on rooftops or shotgun troopers charging you.
While the story itself isn’t too impressive, I must admit that the levels themselves are really well done. There are some spectacular set pieces throughout the campaign. Whether that’s charging a beach on a tank, skydiving in an active military zone, or chasing trains in a New York subway while getting shot at, the campaign knows when to shake up the experience.
Not to imply they’re all winners, however. Early on, there are several instances of slow, meandering stealth sections that go on for a bit too-long for my liking.
But, all in all, the campaign does its job well enough to serve as a tutorial for Battlefield 6’s multiplayer. You’ll rotate through multiple classes in the form of different characters in the story, understanding their strengths and weaknesses for when you face them online.
It’ll also give you the freedom to familiarise yourself with the wide variety of guns and attachments in the game, letting you get a feel for what choices are best under the right circumstances.
So, while it’s no Black Hawk Down or Saving Private Ryan, it’s serviceable enough for those wanting that experience.
It takes a village of forum posts and YouTube tutorials to get it running
Unfortunately, getting Battlefield 6 to run on my PC was probably the worst experience I’ve had trying to get a game to run on my desktop since, funnily enough, DICE’s own Star Wars Battlefront 2 years ago.
I won’t pin the blame entirely on DICE here, as most of these issues seem to be a byproduct of Windows 11 looming around the corner. For those out of the loop, Windows 11 has decided that anyone who hasn’t bought a new motherboard in the last five years effectively needs to pull out their wallets and fix that.
If PC users wish to upgrade to Windows 11 (and receive security updates), they must ensure their motherboards support TPM 2.0 and can enable Secure Boot on their machines. Now, a lot of motherboards can still do this, but it takes a bit of fiddling in your BIOS settings to set it up.
In saying that, Battlefield 6’s kernel anti-cheat system, Javelin, relies on Secure Boot to get going, which the company says offers them more flexibility in targeting different kinds of cheating.
However, players have reported that Javelin can conflict with other kernel anti-cheat software, preventing Battlefield 6 from opening. The most famous example of this is with League of Legends and Valorant.
For some folks, they’ll need to uninstall their Riot Games software so Vanguard doesn’t prevent their computer from launching Battlefront. Or the more straightforward solution is to close Vanguard from your task manager to ensure it isn’t running in the background and can’t prevent Battlefield 6 from opening. It’s a minor issue, but one that adds more tech admin before even launching the game on PC.
Finally, after spending a full day troubleshooting all of my tech issues, you’d think I’d finally be able to get into a multiplayer match, right? Oh, sweet summer child, this is a triple-A PC release in 2025. What made you think that?
Getting into battle(field)
Admittedly, I didn’t get a chance to play the open beta, so I didn’t have much of an opportunity to try more all-out battles pre-release. During the recent review period, media were allowed to attend early events and had focused multiplayer nights in the lead-up to Battlefront 6’s launch. However, due to technical issues, I was still struggling to load into games with other players.
When I finally could, I would get matched with one or two real players and then a lobby filled with bots. After the mountain of issues I went through, I was just happy to get into a game at all.
However, after playing a single match, my game would either crash or suddenly refuse to place me in lobbies with players. After verifying the Steam files, updating my DNS settings, and even reinstalling the game entirely, I had to give up and accept fate.
I can’t speak to whether most PC players will have the same experience I did here. However, everything I experienced was issues that were vocalised during the open beta period of the game a few months ago, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these issues persist for players post-launch.
In saying that, despite the gauntlet of issues I did experience, I did really enjoy my time with Battlefield 6, and I’m eagerly looking forward to playing the game on launch with everyone. But as of writing, I don’t think I can fairly score this game without having appropriately experienced the multiplayer environment.
Rating: Unscored/5.
Battlefront 6 will release on PS5, Xbox Series S|X and PC on October 11.
You can purchase the game from Amazon ($79), PlayStation Store ($109.95), Xbox ($109.95) or Steam ($109.95)
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