Beta Blues
Battlefield’s identity has always been about large-scale combined arms warfare, at least up until the hero shooter TEMU version that was 2042. As Battlefield 6 finished up its two open betas, I’ve seen plenty of sentiments proclaiming that Battlefield is back, baby! Yet as an old-time fan, I feel like I’ve woken up in a bizarro world.
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Now don’t me wrong, there is a lot I liked about the beta. It’s certainly better than 2042, but that’s not saying much considering the bar was quite literally on the floor. However, the large-scale combat and combined arms both felt notably missing in the beta. There were moments where, if you had handed me the game blind and told me it was Call of Duty without the crossover madness, I might have believed you.
The first and biggest issue was the maps themselves. By the second beta, players were able to experience 4 of them. One was an infantry-only map, two were tightly compressed urban clustertrucks, and even the largest map, Liberation Peak, funneled players into a very corridor-like play structure.
Nothing felt like large-scale warfare, it just felt like fast-paced madness. Battlefield was always a slower-paced, more tactical game. It was never a simulationist game like Squad, but it was a happy medium between them and Call of Duty. The beta felt like a constant adrenaline-filled slap-happy loop of run, shoot, die instantly, respawn, shoot, die repeat.
It’s like riding the same roller coaster all day long. Your brain constantly being bombarded with the same stimulation would make the excitement of it feel dull after a short while. The Battlefield 6 beta felt like it was terrified that if it took more than a few seconds to smash you in the face with a shiny explosion, you would wander off into the wilderness never to be seen again.
There’s a new Battlefield advice “feature” that essentially takes the squad leader role by marking objectives, although a squad leader can override it. The problem? It only ever advises you to attack, even if you have all but one flag in Conquest. It’s like the idea of defending a point is blasphemy in this game. You must GO GO GO, at all times. No breathing, no thinking, only shoot and die.
As cool as the destruction is, it only exists to fuel the chaos rather than the gameplay experience. I rarely saw the destruction have a meaningful or tactical effect. It was just a means to constantly fill your screen with smoke, rubble, and shiny explosions that looked cool but did little else.
Furthermore, the map design of the two urban maps, Siege of Cairo and Iberian Offensive, felt questionable. I can’t speak for how Call of Duty plays now, but I actually dropped the series back with Black Ops…Black Ops 1, yes, the 2010 one. Yes, I’m old.
The reason was that the maps were designed in a specific predatory way that now reminds me of the psychological warfare that mobile games use today. Essentially, the maps and spawns were designed so that by just going straight in any direction, you were going to come up behind someone at some point.
This meant you were always going to get some kills to keep you engaged. Those kills contributed to kill streak rewards, a clever carrot on a stick that loved to give you a taste here and there to keep you chasing it. The maps weren’t designed to foster engaging gameplay. They were a psychological trick to keep you playing. It was a catch-up mechanic that ensured that no matter how good someone was, they would get shot in the back eventually, and keep anyone from being potentially frustrated by a losing streak.
Once you pull back that curtain and see it, it can’t be unseen, so I dropped the series and have no interest in picking it back up. In the Battlefield 6 beta, both Cairo and Iberian Offensive gave me that same familiar feeling.
There are so many winding alleyways and buildings full of doors and windows that it’s inevitable that you’re going to end up behind or flanking entire platoons. I’ve been shot in the back more in the Battlefield 6 beta than in every other Battlefield game combined. While you could always flank and come up behind enemies in other Battlefield games, you had to make an effort to do so. In the beta, it just happened as a natural part of moving toward an objective.
At the same time, you’re back in the action so quickly that it dampens some of the frustration of getting shot in the back, especially when you get a double or triple kill streak by doing the same thing back to the enemy only moments later. It feels like a psychological trick again, and I don’t like it.
Then there is the lack of combined arms. Vehicles exist on some of the maps, but are rare. A single tank, maybe two, and a handful of transport vehicles that make zero sense existing, as the maps are so small it’s like getting in your car to drive across the street. The thing is, the lack of a vehicle focus somewhat unbalances the game. There are 32 players on the other team, and classes no longer have weapon restrictions, meaning an engineer can take any weapon they want alongside their rocket launchers with no trade-offs.
That means they are all frothing at the mouth to use those rockets on the one, maybe two possible armored targets the game has for them. It’s even worse with air vehicles, which only appear on a single map. Liberation Peak has a single jet and a helicopter, have fun fighting the other 31 players on your team for a chance to fly one.
If you get lucky enough to get in the pilot seat, well, enemy engineers can also carry both an RPG and an Anti-Air homing missile at the same time. Why? Because screw you, that’s why, enjoy your trip back to the respawn screen. Flying vehicles feel like coffins you have to try really hard to have the privilege of dying in.
Balance in general is all over the place. I tend to be skeptical when players cry that something is overpowered in a game, but the shotgun definitely felt oppressive. Since the assault class can have two primaries, there was no downside to carrying one.
When I tried using an assault rifle, it bucked so hard that it felt like I was trying to restrain a horny stallion as it desperately tried to get to a field of Mares. I swapped it out for a carbine, and it handled like a pinpoint laser beam while loving fairies massaged my shoulders.
I’m hopeful that I might turn around on the game for its full release. Weapons and such can be tweaked. The maps, however, are a bigger problem.
Nothing short of a full redesign will make the urban maps not feel like a clustered, chaotic meatgrinder where you get shot from a random direction every 5 seconds. At least one other map is confirmed to be infantry only. So out of the 9 maps coming at launch, we have 2 infantry-only, 2 very compact, messy urban clustered messes, and 1 medium-sized map that still manages to funnel itself into corridors.
That leaves 4 maps that hopefully recaptures the original Battlefield experience, but even if all 4 do, which is definitely not a gamble I’d bet money on. That’s still less than half. So, forgive me, but I’m going to remain hopeful, but skeptical.
For me, at least, proclaiming Battlefield is back is premature. If you were one of the types who played Operation Metro 24/7, well, maybe for you it is. But if the entire game is like that, I will definitely feel like the soul of the series is lost and the bar has shifted into Call of Duty territory. Which is a shame, because those games already exist.
