Battlefield 6 Review (Xbox Series X|S)

EA and the newly-rebranded Battlefield Studios had a lot to prove to me with Battlefield 6. The previous game in the series, Battlefield 2042, left a lot to be desired - and truth be told, I was losing a bit of faith in the series ever getting back to its glory days. With BF6 now here, backed up by a pretty smooth opening weekend in my experience, the team is starting to win me over - even if this isn't the perfect Battlefield game just yet.

Jumping straight into the action, mind you, and the game does a very good job at selling you on the experience right out of the gate. Visuals and performance are fantastic on both Xbox Series consoles, gunplay is vastly improved over its predecessor, and there's everything here on day one that you want to see from a Battlefield game. We've got a full single-player campaign, a vast online suite of maps, modes and weapons and the game's Portal toolset right at launch. This is a far cry from 2042, which (yes, you're reading this right) didn't even have an in-game scoreboard during multiplayer matches at launch. Yeah, moving on.

Moving on EA certainly has; the bones of Battlefield 6 are significantly improved, and the game is on a much stronger footing this time around. From the moment you get the controller in your hand you can tell BF Studios has put a lot of care and attention into simply making the game feel great to play, and that hasn't gone unnoticed by yours truly. Weapons seem weighty, your character feels properly grounded in the experience, and everything just kind of plays as you'd expect a Battlefield game on modern hardware to play. I know this all sounds very obvious and straight forward, but this aspect of BF6 was absolutely essential before the game could spread its wings and get any more ambitious.

One thing I'll touch on fairly quickly here is the game's single-player campaign mode, which admittedly isn't overly ambitious. The story of Battlefield 6 takes you to plenty of far-flung locations in order take down Pax Armata — a military faction whose allegiances don't lie with any one nation — and it's all pretty tried and tested, if I'm being honest. There are stealthy bits, big shooty bits, vehicle missions, a token 'open objective' level etc., with a narrative told from that sort of 'flashback' style of storytelling. You've seen it all before, but none of it is necessarily bad.

In fact, we've seen some suggestions and opinions out there that the BF6 campaign is a bit crap, and to be honest, I kind of want to dispel those fears for a moment. Battlefield 6 delivers exactly what I expect from a modern military shooter campaign, and I think it's a wee bit harsh to go too hard on it. It's certainly a more coherent experience than Battlefield 4's single-player was - and of course, 2042 didn't even have a story campaign. Alright, sure, the game teases its much-anticipated battle royale mode at the end of the story and you could argue that building some of these large levels was probably a means to that end more than anything else - but this is a decent little romp at the end of the day; exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a grounded military campaign mode.

Right, now that that's done, let's get into the meat and potatoes of Battlefield 6; it's multiplayer suite. As I've mentioned a few times on the site now, I wanted to give myself the weekend to play this on public servers rather than jump the gun on this review - and I'm glad that I did; my experience has been very smooth over the last few days, and Battlefield 6 is really starting to sink its teeth into me. There are still a few elements that need tweaking to make it more Battlefield in my opinion, but the team is very close - and this a great base for the future of the series.

First off, that solid gunplay I previously mentioned of course carries over to multiplayer - this is simply a fun-as-heck shooter to mess around with online. It's got shades of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot about its gunplay and character movement, with some of that old Battlefield 3 era feel behind it, and I'm quite happy with that mix so far. I'd probably like the pace to be slowed down slightly — this is where the modern COD influence comes in — but the whole experience still feels like Battlefield, which is great to see.

Conquest is here in all of its classic game mode glory, and the modern-favourite Breakthrough mode also makes its grand return. You can tell that Battlefield Studios has worked hard to balance these two modes with BF6; it certainly feels like core of the experience is built around these offerings. I'd argue more the push-and-pull Breakthrough mode in this regard though; the game could do with a few tweaks and additions to make Conquest properly shine, in my opinion.

A lot of that comes down to the game's selection of maps at launch. Conquest is all about freedom of gameplay; vehicular and infantry warfare going down on large-scale maps as a sort of 'capture the area dance' plays out in front of you. This experience is still mostly intact, but Battlefield 6 has honed in on a more infantry-focused map pool at launch, and some of these tighter maps just don't work as well in Conquest mode. Mirak Valley, New Sobek City and the classic Operation Firestorm levels are examples of arenas that work well with Conquest's sensibilities, but the likes of Empire State, Iberian Offensive and Saints Quarter just feel a little too restrictive. I'm keen to see where things go post-launch with the team's approach to maps, but needless to say, I'd like to see more large-scale offerings.

Those smaller offerings also mess with class balance a bit. In my experience, the tighter maps favour Assault and Support much more than Engineer and Recon, and that's often led me to just default-picking those former two classes for most of my time playing Conquest. I might crack out Recon on Mirak Valley or Engineer on Operation Firestorm every now and then, but the beauty of this classic Battlefield mode is offering the space to play with every class on every map. Again, Breakthrough mode fares a little better in my experience, but I'm hoping Conquest remains a priority post launch and that's reflected in the map design (it's my preferred way to play Battlefield!).

The other main gripe I have with multiplayer right now relates to progression. Battlefield Studios clearly wants you to earn your way to the top in this game — which is fair, I don't mind a bit of a grind — but a lot of unlocks in BF6 are behind specific challenges; much more than in previous Battlefield titles. I'm not massively keen on messing with my preferred playstyle just to unlock certain things or progress in a certain way, so I'd personally prefer more unlocks to be rank/XP based. I know, that's probably just a personal thing and some folks may prefer the more unique challenges to unlock stuff - I just like those to be saved for more niche unlocks than main items like attachments and such!

Before I wrap up here, there a few other points I want to touch on. One is becoming an easier and easier recommendation with online games as time goes by: turn off crossplay, whatever you do. My first few hours of this game were plagued with cross-map sniping that'd be nigh-on impossible to pull off using a controller - so whether it's cheating or just plain old mouse and keyboard aim, the experience is simply a better one on Xbox with crossplay off. The other thing is that I've not really messed with Portal much yet — custom toolsets like this are kind of a bonus to me rather than a core part of the experience — but it certainly sounds like the mode has potential. I'm happy to let the community have their way with it for now, and I may end up testing out some of its creations down the line if and when they're more integrated into the main experience.