I already played this more than 2042…

Over the course of the two beta weekends, I spent about 20 hours playing the Battlefield 6 open beta, and I could easily throw down another 20 right now.

The two open beta weekends for Battlefield 6 felt sort of like an interview. The newly created Battlefield Studios came in with a reintroduction as to what the series is about and gave us a taste of the future of what the game will be. In my 20 hours of playtime, I was reminded of why I disconnected with the series previously, but then I was handed a game that brought me back to the days of when I would endlessly play Battlefield 4, but with a fresh coat of paint and destruction.

It’s been four years since the launch of Battlefield 2042 and seven years since Battlefield V, which is the last game in the series that I spent any significant amount of time playing. While it’s not the worst game I’ve ever played, I couldn’t stomach more than a few hours of the Battlefield 2042 beta before I jumped ship.

As the Battlefield 6 announcements slowly started to roll out and promise to “take the series back to its roots,” I was certainly excited for what the Vince Zampella-led Battlefield Studios could come up with.

Sow Far, Sow Good

When I play Battlefield, I am looking for an experience that is truly unique to the series. To me, Battlefield is at its best when the sandbox allows for a variety of different playstyles to flourish without hindering the overall game for you and your teammates. And after 20 hours of the beta, I certainly feel that Battlefield 6 nails that idea. That’s in addition to the nearly pitch-perfect gunplay, cinematic all-out warfare moments, and teamwork that can flip a game’s momentum on its head in a flash.

In BF6, if you can play a field medic focused on reviving downed teammates, if you can play as a long-range sniper that tracks the enemy teams’ every move, or if you want to play as a mechanic solely focused on the well-being of your friendly tank, you can, and each playstyle actively contributes to the team you can.

After spending a good amount of time with each of the four classes, every tool, and most weapons available for the two weekends, I felt that everything was designed with the idea of enabling players to contribute to the team, whether or not they are getting kills throughout the match.

Between Support, Assault, Recon, and Engineer, I definitely found myself playing Support the most, but I really enjoyed each class more than I have with previous Battlefields. Support, which now has an ammo pack, AOE healing, and the classic defib, was the class that I felt the most balanced between helping the team out and being able to frag out on my own at a consistent rate.

Each class felt like it had a clear and defined role. Assault is your front-line player who looks for as many frags as possible through gunplay and positioning. Recon sits back, offering a stable respawn point close to the objective while spotting enemies and taking on opposing snipers. Supports will play nearest the Assault players, keeping them well stocked on ammo and actively in the fight with revive after revive. And finally, the engineer will keep friendly tanks rolling and limit the ground opposing tanks can take with rockets and land mines. No two roles in Battlefield 6 felt like they stepped on each other’s toes, and each class has a variety of play styles within it that kept the game fresh.

When it comes to weaponry in BF6, the guns that were available all felt unique, refined, and fun. Battlefield 6 has a new weapon customization menu that gives players 100 points to add attachments and alter their guns. Each attachment has a point value assigned to it, such as a red dot costing 5 points or a silencer costing 20. The system is very reminiscent of the pick 10 class creator from Black Ops 2, which was a great addition to Call of Duty at the time. While I didn’t usually have enough of the attachments unlocked on all but a few weapons in the beta, the 100-point weapon system was a good way to mix and match weapon builds that I certainly want to play around with more. I only wish that you could save multiple different builds of each gun. (Unless you can, and I missed it because the menu is bad)

Of the weapons that were available during the beta, not a single weapon felt like it was significantly worse than any other weapon. Some guns definitely benefited from having attachments more than others, but after leveling each weapon up even just a few times, there were plenty of viable builds for the gun of your choosing.

A point of contention some had for the beta was the available maps. The conversation online highlighted that the current maps were all smaller than most Battlefield maps of the past, which was largely true. Other than Liberation Peak, none of the maps featured both land and air vehicles. While Battlefield Studios has confirmed that more large-scale maps will be available at launch, I really liked the 4 playable maps so far.

Yes, they were small maps that favored a lot of running into a point over and over again, but each map was unique with its own identities, and depending on the game mode, really played into the all-out warfare I love about Battlefield. I felt that while playing, the available maps all catered towards a more balanced gameplay experience while playing Breakthrough as opposed to Conquest or Rush. But depending on what you like to do while playing Battlefield, I like to heal and support, your mileage may vary.

Root Rot

Now its time to nit pick things.

1. Class Icons

One of the things I think I care least about if Battlefield Studios changes before the game goes live in October is the class icons. There is nothing wrong with them, but, at a glance, they aren’t recognizable like the old class icons to see who is playing what class while browsing the scoreboard.

Other than the Assault icon, the symbols don’t feel like they have any meaning or identity, but if this is what the icons are when the game launches, oh well.

2. The Menu

Like many online shooters on the market today, Battlefield 6 has also fallen victim to the Netflix-style menu system that, like every other game in the space, sucks. Rather than having a list of modes and servers to play on, the Battlefield 6 menu is a clunky mess that favors form over function, where starting a simple game of conquest can be hidden on a separate tab rather than visible in a list of modes to choose from. Too many games want everything to be a picture or cool animation to click on, rather than a list of modes, weapons, or settings that used to be so simple but have just gone too far.

The Battlefield 6 menu has tabs at the top and Netflix-style horizontal lists on the main screen. The Play, Loadouts, Challenges, Bulletin, Featured, and Training Grounds tabs could all be on one list and leave behind needing pictures for every mode, which doesn’t tell the user what the mode even is.

3. Open Vs. Closed Classes

The last thing I was on the fence about during the beta was the Open Vs. Closed class system. In most Battlefield games, each class was limited to a few weapons that were most relevant to the class style. For example, recon classes in Battlefield would have snipers and DMRs, the long-range weapons. If you were playing Recon, you wouldn’t be able to choose any other weapon that wasn’t a sniper or DMR. This would be considered a Closed Class. In the beta, Battlefield Studios were playing with the idea of open class, where any class could have any weapon.

At first, I didn’t mind that I could use whatever weapon I wanted on Support. It continued to support the idea that this was my Battlefield and I was being encouraged to play however I wanted to. But as my play time went on, I started to realize that the classes felt a little pointless if every weapon was available everywhere.

Do I think each class should only have access to 4 or 5 weapons? No. However, there can definitely be more available for class without every weapon being available at all times. When the game launches, I suspect that Battlefield Studios will continue to play with ideas and game modes being limited to open vs closed classes, and I think I am ok with that. From what I played, the game is too fun and plays too well for this to really hamper my overall experience.

Germination

There hasn’t been a multiplayer shooter I’ve been this excited for, like I am for Battlefield 6, in a long time. Between now and October 10th, Battlefield Studios has its work cut out for it to nail the launch of the most promising entry into the series in a long time.

Battlefield hasn’t had a smooth launch since Battlefield 4, and with the amount of active users they had just during the beta, I sure hope their servers are at full capacity and a trusty Engineer player is on standby for any repairs needed.