Battlefield 6

Written by Jason Dailey on 10/12/2025 for PS5  

When Battlefield 2042 launched back in 2021, it felt half-baked, lacking basic features for a multiplayer shooter such as an in-game scoreboard and voice chat. It also left singleplayer campaigns in the rearview mirror, making the lack of features and polish even more strange considering its singular focus on multiplayer. It took a long while, but 2042 eventually became a decent game—an opinion I stand firmly by to this day—but even so, it served its much larger purpose as a soapbox for longtime fans of the Battlefield series to sound off on, advocating for systemic change within the franchise.

Four years later, it appears that soapboxing paid off, as Battlefield 6 arrives to much anticipation following successful pre-launch playtesting that had fans salivating for launch day. Despite the return of a singleplayer mode, this new entry is still intently focused on being the best multiplayer military shooter it can be, leaving 2042 caked in dust in the process. Yes, a singleplayer campaign returns in Battlefield 6, but it’s not the reason to play. You’re coming for the best-in-class multiplayer, and you’re staying for the best-in-class multiplayer, too.

While I appreciate the return of a narrative-driven solo campaign to my Battlefield games, the one we’ve received in Battlefield 6 is just average. I wasn’t overwhelmed by it. I wasn’t underwhelmed by it. I was simply whelmed. It’s clear that Battlefield Studios is attempting to shake off the rust with this campaign, though I applaud its return, and do think they’re heading in the right direction. It’s just a little sloppy in its execution—like they tried to shove a singleplayer game back into a multiplayer powerhouse.

Set in 2028, Battlefield 6 sees NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) on the verge of collapse, leaving a void of military power across the globe that a private military corporation called PAX Armata is trying to swoop in and fill. PAX Armata seeks security agreements with countries around the world, the first of which is the eastern European nation of Georgia. That’s where you join the members of an elite group of U.S. Marine Raiders known by their callsign: Dagger 13. The special operators of Dagger 13 are in country assisting with what is supposed to be a peaceful transition of power from NATO security forces to PAX Armata forces when all hell breaks loose. As it often does.

The opening moments of the six-ish hour campaign are quite thrilling, putting you in the middle of the action almost immediately. A large set piece translates the signature Battlefield multiplayer gameplay to a linear cinematic campaign well enough, though it begins to falter later. Overall, it certainly feels like a Battlefield campaign in terms of being grounded and gritty, but the story beats were easily predictable and somewhat poorly executed. It’s an interesting premise, sure, but you’ve read this book before, perhaps just not in a Battlefield game.

The campaign could use some refinement, both now and for future games, as there is some jankiness when transitioning from gameplay to pre-rendered animations or cutscenes that is too abrupt, sucking you out of the experience. The mission structure and NPC AI is also a bit too messy to remain immersive throughout. You can tell they’ve taken multiplayer maps and turned them into singleplayer missions, because at times the handrails needed to keep missions flowing properly just aren’t there. I occasionally found myself able to push too far ahead or off the beaten path and watched enemies run past me or easily flank me because I wasn’t supposed to physically be where I was in relation to the mission design. Even when I didn’t wander into no man’s land, the AI would often run straight up to each other and take turns shooting at point-blank range. At times, it felt like I was accidentally behind the curtain; like I was playing around with a mission editor rather than a handcrafted mission, if that makes sense.

Graphically, Battlefield 6 is a looker. Running at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second on my PlayStation 5 Pro, the environments, texture, and lighting work really standout. NPC character models could use an upgrade though, as they look a bit doughy, but overall, it is a gorgeous game.

Along those lines, the pre-rendered cutscenes are excellent thanks to some top-notch performance capture. The musical score also stands out, having a distinctly “Battlefield” quality about it. The music is there at just the right beat to underscore a big cinematic moment, often propelling you forward with a sense of urgency.

Despite the structure being a bit cattywampus, the campaign is reinforced by the gameplay itself, which, again, is some of the best around in terms of first-person shooters. Put simply, Battlefield 6 has top-shelf gunplay. The weight of each weapon, the recoil, the audio, the satisfaction of landing a headshot—it is immaculate. The PS5’s DualSense controller is the best way to experience it, in my opinion, thanks to the haptic feedback and phenomenal implementation of adaptive trigger support. It really does make each weapon feel distinct, and not just because their stats are different. I was regularly swapping out weapons over the course of the campaign just to see how each one felt to operate.

The gameplay is also what will keep you coming back night after night to take part in the real star of the Battlefield 6 show: multiplayer. There’s just not anything else like it right now. There are games with large-scale battles, there are games with boots-on-the-ground combat, and there are games with destructible environments, but there is nothing that does spectacle quite like Battlefield 6. You’ll find yourself running-and-gunning down a street, knocking a wall down with a sledgehammer to gain a vantage point to shoot a rocket at a tank, and then before you know it, the entire building collapses around you. Longtime fans call these “Battlefield moments,” and they’ve been dialed up to 10 (hell, maybe 11) for Battlefield 6.

The spectacle is thanks to a combination of elements, but the primary one is destruction, which is remarkable in Battlefield 6. Helicopters shot out of the sky will fall through multiple buildings, carving a path of destruction along the way. Enemies hunkered down (camping) in a building can have the floor beneath them taken out entirely. Or you can just level an entire structure with a tank or several well-placed explosives.

The thing about it is that they didn’t just add chaos and explosions for the hell of it—this isn’t a Michael Bay film. They’ve added a chaos to the multiplayer suite that feels organic rather than scripted, and it’s all based on player action, as well as the flow of each match. That’s what makes Battlefield 6’s multiplayer suite so hard to put down. The entirety of a match is like one gigantic Battlefield moment now, and one gigantic dopamine hit to boot.

Traditional soldier classes are back, replacing the specialists from Battlefield 2042. This is no longer a Battlefield game thinking about being a hero shooter (though I kind of liked it, I must admit), bringing back the Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon classes that have been a staple of the franchise for decades. What’s interesting is that you can play in either “open weapon” or “closed weapon” playlists, with open weapons allowing you to use any weapons with any class and closed doing the opposite. To incentivize you, using the correct weapon for each class comes with buffs for doing so. For instance, using an SMG with the Engineer class includes higher hip fire accuracy for firing on the move.

At first, I took exception to the notion of open classes, but its application hasn’t bothered me at all so far. Each class also enjoys unique buffs and equipment. The Recon class will auto spot enemies when aiming at them and has the laser designator to paint enemy vehicles for rocket launchers, as an example. So, it’s kind of a lite military version of a hero shooter after all! Just don’t call it a hero shooter and you’ll be alright.

One of the hot-button topics during the Battlefield 6 beta was movement. A lot of players voiced concerns over it feeling too much like “the other guy,” with it having too much pace and flow for a grounded military shooter. They’ve certainly toned it down for the full release, and for the better. Movement feels perfect as-is, with a nice balance between mobility and the fact that your character is carrying around dozens of pounds of equipment on your body.

The omnimovement is great, allowing you to lay on your back, crawl backwards on your butt, fall backwards to avoid getting taken out by a sniper, and even drag your allies to cover while reviving them—it’s dope. We’ve also got contextual lean, corner peaking, and weapon mounting this time around. Battlefield Studios thought of almost everything.

I say almost because, despite adding nice quality-of-life features, such as multiple loadouts per class and vehicle, or the ability to party-up with randoms between matches, they’ve oddly dropped the ball on a few other critical things.

For starters, the main menu user interface needs some help. Can we please ditch the streaming app-style UI’s in video games? Scrolling through the primary modes and various game modes is a bit of a chore on console. More importantly, something is funky about the map rotation in the multiplayer suite. There are two maps that I’ve still yet to play because they never make the rotation. Meanwhile, I have played the same map back-to-back several times because it switched game modes between matches—clever girl. I’ve seen other folks on social media complain that they rarely see certain maps as well, so anecdotally, something is up with the map rotation.

And finally, helicopters and jets have no real value in the game right now. They need a buff or re-tuning of some sort. I’ve never been killed by one, can barely fly one on controller, and see no value to using them in the large format game modes. In fact, I’ve never even had to equip my anti-air missile launcher to combat aerial vehicles, which tells me that they’re impotent currently.

Context matters when determining a score for a game, and I understand that multiplayer is the bulk of the experience here. I also understand that’s why most players will buy Battlefield 6—and rightfully so. Oddly enough, if there was no singleplayer campaign this time around, I would have scored it higher, but Battlefield Studios must be held to account for its shortcomings there.

With that said, the multiplayer is where it’s at. The gunplay, movement, and weapons all feel great in your hands. There simply is no other multiplayer shooter like Battlefield 6, that blends spectacle and player agency to such great effect, nor on such a large scale. Battlefield 2042 crawled so that Battlefield 6 could run, and it feels good to have that classic, boots-on-the-ground Battlefield experience back. I’ll be putting hundreds of hours into Battlefield 6 between now and the next entry in the franchise.