Battlefield 6 review: Battlefield is back - but fans will be expecting more

"Battlefield is back." It's a phrase that's been overused with Battlefield 6 but having played the full release extensively, I'm pleased to say it really is.

However I just can't shrug the feeling I was expecting a bit more at launch and that fans will be too...

Everything had been coming together nicely for Battlefield 6 ahead of its release. The open beta went down well, the taste of the single-player campaign looked incredibly promising and Portal promised more options than ever.

It's no secret Electronic Arts (EA) has poured pretty much everything it's got into getting Battlefield back to the glory days of Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4.

Following the flop of Battlefield 2042 when it launched in 2021, the pressure has been on EA. Some online even called Battlefield 6 the last chance saloon for the series.

And for the most part, EA has nailed it. I'm a big fan of Battlefield 6. But in its state at launch, I was expecting a little bit more.

Battlefield 6's single-player campaign has some great missions / EA

What's the campaign like in Battlefield 6? (Spolier-free)

The year is 2027 and NATO is in disarray as a private military corporation known as Pax Armata has risen to take advantage of the chaos.

You play as members of the elite marine raiders unit Dagger 1-3 as they go on a series of missions to fight against Pax Armata's grab for power. The characters you play as each have different Classes across Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon so you get to try loads of different approaches out.

Assault is frontline, Engineers take out vehicles and repair equipment, Support are medics and Recon class scouts and snipes.

There are nine missions in total that take you across the globe, including Gibraltar, Egypt, Tajikistan and the US. It took me around six hours to complete while spending a little bit of time looking for collectible dog tags.

It's a solid campaign. The missions themselves are fun and the story itself is decent enough but the standouts are the personal moments where you feel like a soldier in a war you have no say in.

This isn't about being a hero but rather a part of a squad, a pawn on the battlefield where soldiers on the same side don't even always agree with each other about what's going on.

Those moments come across really well and at times, you even question yourself about what you have to do and why you're doing it. It's very clever in that way.

But the overarching story isn't quite as compelling. I get the campaign in a Battlefield title isn't necessarily the main attraction and it needs to be fairly short to keep players interested but it feels as though some elements are a little underdeveloped, such as the villain and even one of the soldiers that comes on board with your squad further into the game, and the twist towards the end is a bit predictable.

Having said that, the ending itself is brilliant and really makes you think and reflect about the perceptions you have playing up until that moment.

The missions are great and varied and it's engaging pretty much throughout. You'll be beach landing on the shores of Gibraltar in a tank, fighting through NYC townhouses using thermal scopes on your gun and infiltrating huge bases.

The missions are very Battlefield; brilliantly over-the-top in some cases, huge scales of destruction you get to play through or make yourself and being given license to approach some objectives however you want to.

I mentioned in our campaign preview I was wary if we'd already been given a look at the very best missions Battlefield 6's campaign had to offer and aside from the final mission, that was what I felt after the credits rolled.

In terms of visuals and performance, the game looks brilliant when running as it should, the landscapes are stunning and on the whole, the level of detail is pretty strong.

However there was quite a bit of jank I experienced in the campaign. Jank is basically a term for bugs and glitches.

There were too many instances that took me out of the immersion. You can run through other characters and even stand in them to see strange outlines, their eyeballs and teeth. You can shoot through them to take out enemies too.

There was one section early on where my comrade said the coast was clear - only for him and an enemy soldier to be awkwardly standing off before I took the enemy down and we proceeded as planned.

Some character animations when performing key actions in the story are a little off too, it just isn't quite as polished as I would expect. I did turn off motion blur but some of these animations did stand out.

In larger landscapes, there is the occasional pop in and out that's noticeable too. It's little things like that that just kept me thinking 'that's strange' and it wasn't just the odd moment here or there - in pretty well every mission there was something that took me out of the immersion.

Speaking of performance, one of the first things I always do is play around with the visual settings and there are two main presets - balanced and performance.

I'm someone that usually likes to play on performance mode for the highest fps (frames per second) possible so I switched to this but the moment I did, playing on a base PS5, there was really bad tearing and stuttering in this mode, to the point where I couldn't really focus on what was actually going on. It was quite simply unplayable.

That's because balanced mode already targets 60fps whereas performance mode targets 120fps. I played on a 60hZ TV and this is a refresh rate screen the majority of console players will play on. I'm surprised I was able to access performance mode at all on this platform despite my TV not being compatible.

But when I switched back to balance, it was completely fine after that and looked brilliant. I stayed with balanced throughout the rest of the review and did not encounter any issues.

Battlefield 6 has a great variety of maps / EA

What's multiplayer like in Battlefield 6?

Let's be honest, most people play Battlefield for its multiplayer, and sticking with performance to start off, my experience on the whole was much better here.

I didn't notice anywhere near as much jank, the only thing that springs to mind is occasionally my soldier would be flung 50 metres high after simply being shot but that was more amusing than anything else (and I'm sure even more so for the player that got me).

Battlefield 6 looks stunning in multiplayer and aside from that one example, it ran pretty flawlessly. On large maps with a lot going on, I was incredibly impressed Battlefield 6 barely missed a beat at all. It's clear this has been the focus and it's been nailed in that respect.

The destruction is brilliant. It does take some getting used to in terms of what can and can't be destroyed but when you figure it out on each map, it's a joy to see happen and thrilling when it opens up so many different avenues to attack or defend. It really helps keeping maps feeling fresher for longer as it opens up so many more possibilities. Of course some structures need to be kept or else every map could end up looking the same and being levelled.

Destruction has always been a big focus of the Battlefield series and I feel as though it's really been done very well here.

There are playlists with open and closed Classes, meaning players can play with the specific builds for each Class or enjoy playlists that allow them to have free rein. I played a mix of both and enjoyed switching between the two, closed Classes present much more of a challenge whereas open Classes really allowed me to build characters exactly how I wanted to play.

Conquest and Breakthrough are the two modes Battlefield is renowned for and with my favoured Class being Recon, these are easily two of my favourites.

In Conquest, two big teams compete to control objectives and eliminate opposing forces and in Breakthrough, two teams go head-to-head where attackers advance sector by sector to claim new territory while defenders stop them. There's also Escalation which is another large scale mode where you have to hold and remove more objectives than the enemy to conquer an area, with the first team to take three territories claiming victory.

These modes for me are as good as they have been in the series and that's because of how strong some of the maps are.

Quickly on that, the maps on the whole are great and each one offers something a little bit different. With my favoured class being Recon, for me the highlights are the expanses of Liberation Peak, New Sobek City and Siege of Cairo with their possibilities for longer-range attacks.

One map that kept having me tearing my hair out though was Saints Quarter when playing close quarters combat modes. These modes include Domination and King of the Hill where players fight to capture objectives, as well as Squad and Team Deathmatch where the objective is to eliminate enemy soldiers.

I found some of these modes to get very sweaty very quickly. Now I'm not the best by any stretch of the imagination, but when I more than held my own and was among the top performers in some games playing across different Classes, soon after in a new lobby I was humbled very quickly and left struggling to score at all.

That took away a little bit of the fun for me as I felt as though I was just waiting for these kind of games to finish but I didn't experience that in the larger scale modes.

Overall, multiplayer in Battlefield is great fun while not necessarily breaking any new ground for the series. It refines what the series already does so well to an even higher standard.

Given that it seems developers have been focused on getting Battlefield back on track, I can completely see why this approach has been taken.

But it would have been interesting to see if some risks could have been implemented at launch. Maybe more will be taken in future updates with maps and modes but that remains to be seen.

It seems as though Portal could be relied on to do the heavy lifting in that regard.

Destruction in Battlefield 6 multiplayer opens up so many different possibilities / EA

What's Portal like in Battlefield 6?

Unfortunately, I was not able to go hands-on with the new Portal Builder itself ahead of launch. There were a handful of playable experiences available to check out though, which were Infantry Conquest, Infantry Breakthrough and Hardcore Conquest.

Infantry Conquest and Breakthrough are the same modes but with no vehicles. Hardcore Conquest is Conquest but with a hardcore ruleset of increased damage, limited HUD, closed weapon rules and more. All quite safe and predictable variations.

These were fun to try but they only really gave a taste of the amazing creations that will come, especially as there will be spatial editing where players can make changes and additions to existing maps at launch using open source development tools.

There will also be new experimental modes such as Top of the World where players race others to reach the highest point of the map, using weapons to slow down other teams in their advance.

Portal will undoubtedly allow for players to have unique and crazy experiences - but I wanted to see more examples of this at launch from the developers themselves and for these to be integrated into multiplayer more.

I can't shrug the feeling this is a big component of why EA has played it safe as players will be able to experience crazy modes and rules in Battlefield 6 should they wish. Just not necessarily from the brilliant creative minds of its developers.

Battlefield 6 has the potential to be a true great through live service - but it's not quite there at launch / EA

What's the verdict on Battlefield 6?

Battlefield is back with Battlefield 6. EA has nailed the multiplayer for the most part, the massively key aspect of any first-person shooter really, especially in its longer game modes and with close quarters combat being fun on the whole too. It feels very grounded and that's what a lot of players have been clamouring for, even if it does feel safe and doesn't really break any new ground.

Its campaign is good and is definitely worth playing through. The personal moments of the story are standouts and the missions themselves are fun. Just be aware of some instances of jank you may encounter.

I didn't get the chance to fully check out Portal at the time of writing so this has not been factored into the overall verdict.

I can't help but feel Battlefield 6 does feel safe. I would have liked to have seen a bit more polish with the campaign and for developers to have been given a bit more freedom, which prevents this from being an all-time great at present.

But with it being a live service game, let's hope future updates, such as new modes, maps and fixes, along with brilliant community creations can take it to the next level as Battlefield 6 will undoubtedly be around for a very long time.

8/10

A review code was provided by the publisher and I played Battlefield 6 on a base PS5. Battlefield 6 is out on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on 10 October.

Elsewhere from indy100:

• What time does Battlefield 6 release?
• Battlefield 6's Portal mode looks insane in every way - here's everything that's new

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