I know a multiplayer shooter is really clicking when my buddies and I are all swapping stories at the end of the night. There was the time my Banshee was skyjacked over a pit in Halo Infinite, and I used my Grappleshot to quickly re-skyjack it, sending the would-be thief to their grave. Or when we were down to just my friend Geoff against four opposing players in a game of Valorant, and he channeled his inner John Wick to suddenly become a shotgun god and win it for us. After a week in the trenches, streets, and crumbling buildings of Battlefield 6’s first two beta weekends, one thing is clear: we are going to have a lot of stories to share.
The first thing I noticed as I loaded into the Conquest mode was just how much destruction was happening all around me. Buildings were coming apart, trees were shattering, and walls were crumbling as dirt and dust filled the air. It looks like a war movie, and stopping to let the smoke from a car explosion clear made the area I was in feel less like a playground for a shooting game, and more like, well, a battlefield. On more than one occasion, I found myself drawing the unwanted attention of an enemy tank, and the sheer volume of wreckage all around as it’s cannon opened fire left me feeling like Lord Beckett walking across his rapidly disintegrating ship at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
That destruction is not just there for the vibes, either. Blowing away the other team’s cover with the Assault class’s grenade launcher forces a satisfying reevaluation of their strategy, and knocking down walls to breach an objective or create new sight lines is a tactical delight. That’s not to say you will be kool-aid manning your way around everywhere you go. Unlike The Finals, where the walls are (affectionately) made out of dried breadsticks, here cement walls act like cement, and you’ll need that aforementioned grenade launcher, some rockets, or a trusty tank to fully take advantage of the map, elevating the importance of your equipment selection.
There are four classes to choose from in the Beta, though you have a lot more control over their kit than in previous Battlefield games. Anyone can equip any gun, so if you want to be a sniper rifle-packing Support medic, you can. I’m a little weary of the possibility of meta builds cropping up that would be a mistake not to use, but so far, the variety I’ve seen across both friends and foes seems in keeping with what I would expect in any other shooter like this. Each class also gets special perks with their signature gadget, weapon, and trait. For example, the Engineer takes reduced explosion damage and the Recon can hold their breath to steady their Sniper rifles, which provides a nice push to match your loadout with your class.
People often gravitate towards assault classes, but Battlefield 6 continues the series’ history of making the support options viable, if not essential at times. Engineers are a necessity in bigger maps with vehicles, as their rockets hammer away at map-dominating tanks, and their blowtorch repairs friendly vehicles. Any class can raise the near-dead, which is a change from previous Battlefield games, but the long activation time is often a fast way to join your injured buddy, so the Support’s ability to instantly get the down-but-not-out to their feet using their defibrillator can turn the tide of a close skirmish. This is especially valuable in match types where your side has a limited pool of respawns to draw from.
The shooting itself errs on the easy side, which I think is the right fit for the massive number of players you can see in a given match. Weapons are very accurate, and the minimal recoil means they remain accurate through sustained fire, resulting in a relatively high skill floor, with even bottom-of-the-leaderboard players contributing a decent number of kills much of the time. That’s not to say that skilled play isn’t rewarded. I’ve been on both sides of a fight where one player shoots first, hits a body, and is taken down by a perfectly placed headshot in return.
The fast time-to-kill rewards a keen eye rather than just being the fastest on the draw, and the importance of decision making above almost anything else is a great differentiator compared to other military shooters. Do you take the slow route through back alleys to your objective, risking some potential ambushes on the way, or do you try and find the right time to spring across the wide open road, hoping a sniper isn’t watching or an armored vehicle isn’t on patrol? It’s supremely satisfying to set up an ambush inside a key building, shotgunning players that are foolish enough to run by without checking their corner.
The match types available in the beta don’t break any new ground, but I don’t mind, given how well they play. Conquest is the headliner, with 64 players mixed between infantry and vehicles, and wide open maps with control points to fight over and hold. Eliminating enemies or owning those points drains a limited supply of respawns on the other team, which means playing the objectives or looking for fights both contribute in satisfying ways. Breakthrough is similar, though with a more defined offense (which has those same limited respawns) and defense (with infinite reinforcement). There are more options like Rush, which is a bit like Counterstrike without rounds, or classic Team Deathmatch alongside a few others, but I haven’t been able to peel myself away from the joy of Conquest long enough to spend much time with them yet.
We are still in the beta period, but I’m already having an absolute blast with Battlefield 6’s multiplayer. The action is sublime, with a cinematic quality to the constantly raining debris that is enhanced by how legitimately effective it is to take strategic advantage of that destruction. The accurate guns and short time-to-kill mean anyone has a chance in a gunfight, but the other classes bring enough to the table to make focusing on keeping your team alive or your vehicles operating a viable way to contribute, even when direct combat isn’t your strength. I still need to spend more time with the various vehicles, which is a game unto itself, and I need to play the maps a lot more before I can really render any informed opinions on them (I’m looking at you, sniper-infested cliffs on Liberation Peak). It will also be interesting to see what, if anything, changes or is retuned for the official launch in October – but right now, even in beta form, Battlefield 6 might be the most fun shooter I’ve played this year.
