Disclaimer: The following interview was conducted before EA announced layoffs across Battlefield Studios.
Just two months into 2026, Battlefield 6 has had a rough year.
As players returned from the holidays, hoping to see sweeping changes with the launch of Season 2, publisher EA and the four-studio team that makes up Battlefield Studios – Criterion, DICE, Motive Studios, and Ripple Effect – announced that their second season had been hit with a delay. It’s an announcement that only made the sixth mainline Battlefield game’s future murkier following a disappointing end to Season 1. Now, following the loss of series lead Vince Zampella, the Battlefield 6 team is pressing forward as it attempts to recapture the audience that had once shown up in droves to see it launch.
Season 2 will keep the ball rolling with Phase 2, Nightfall, next week, March 17, with lights-out game modes set on the new Hagental Base map, the Hayes M1030-M1 and TM/O 450 Dirt Bikes, the CZ3A1 and VZ.61 weapons, and more. We caught up with Ripple Effect studio design director Justin Wiebe to talk about everything Season 2’s next chapter has in store and learned more about how Battlefield Studios plans to work with fans to help shape its future.
IGN: Talk to me about Hagental Base. It goes without saying that players have been begging for larger maps, so what can you tell me about this location that makes it a convincing reason for players to jump back into Battlefield 6?
Justin Wiebe: Yeah, I mean, obviously, players have been asking for large maps, and one thing to stress is this was in development before we even had that feedback from the community. Some maps take a while to build. However, we are also extremely excited about this map because it is a subterranean map, and it’s going to focus on a lot more close-quarters combat. Think a little closer to an Operation Metro kind of vibe with it, except that it’s also going to be featured in the dark. That darkness is going to bring all kinds of different tactics to the foreground that, again, can thematically change it up and make it feel a little bit fresh for players to have something completely different than what they’ve already been experiencing. There’s going to be a variety of different modes that are going to be featured on it. So, for example, Team Deathmatch, Squad Deathmatch, and Domination.
Those are all going to take place inside of this nighttime environment, and with that nighttime environment, it’s really going to let players use different strategies or tactics they may not have otherwise used before. Just to give you a few examples: night vision goggles are going to be available for all classes. It’s not something where some people are going to have it, and some people don’t. Everybody gets night vision goggles to cut through the darkness completely. However, it does have a limited battery life, so you actually have to strategize on when you’re going to be able to use it. When’s the right time to put it on or take it off?
But it’s not complete dark all the time; there are other light sources that can give you a reprieve, or maybe it’s a safe space where you want to turn it off and just let it recharge a little bit before throwing it on. Then there’s the aspect of counterplay, so if you know that other players are using night vision goggles, you can also use other abilities to take advantage of that. For example, you could shine flashlights at them. A lot of people have been using [Incendiary Grenades], and it’s been sort of a resurgence of [Incendiary Grenades] being used tactically to force people to take that split second to turn it off, while you can then gain the upper hand on them.
The thermal optic attachment – it’s given a new lease on life for thermal vision and how it can be a little more effective in the darkness. Then, of course, you can look at flashlights. We’ve got dynamic flashlights, so you can actually use lights to try to find enemies if you don’t want to use your night vision goggles or if you want to interplay between them, so you feel like you’re always creating an advantage. Then there are laser attachments, which are really great for ADS but can also really easily give away your location when you’re in the darkness. So, again, a variety of new tactics that are going to come just with the addition of that Nightfall experience using this map.
So, it’s not just about shaking up gameplay with something new. You’re also giving another opportunity for attachments like flashlights to shine.
Wiebe: Especially if there are certain attachments, maybe, that didn’t make as much sense when most of the maps are quite well lit, and it’s like, ‘Well, do I really need a laser? Do I really need a flashlight other than slightly annoying somebody with a little bit of a bloom effect?’ It’s like, now it actually is incredibly important and can make you rethink how you’re setting up some of your weapons. You might have a few weapons that are set up specifically for this Nightfall experience, and then a couple for when you switch back to the other map, so that you can interplay and start using things maybe you hadn’t used before.
I think that’s a good description of how Nightfall shakes up Hagental Base, but what can you tell me about how standard Hagental Base matches play out compared to Nightfall?
Wiebe: The map is designed again with a lot of darkness in mind, but it also has the core staples of Battlefield destruction. There are going to be walls that you’re going to be able to take down. There are certain ceilings that are going to be vulnerable that you can use. We don’t just want visual spectacle. We really always focus on tactical destruction. How do you use it to gain an upper hand on another squad?
Night maps are obviously something that players have wanted to see for a long time, and Nightfall gives them that, but it’s limited to a limited-time mode. It’s just Hagental Base. Why did the team choose to explore a night mode in this way, and why now?
Wiebe: I think this is the first test of getting players into a night mode to see how they are reacting to it. Are they enjoying the experience? If it’s a situation where the community wants more, it’s really popular, they don’t want a limited time, they want it back all the time… These are things that we can explore based on community feedback. I would say this represents a test in the water to see if this is something that’s interesting for the community. Would they like us to explore more, or would they rather focus again on larger maps in the day and say, ‘For us, that’s the preference’? We’re going to learn a lot from this. We’re working with the community and listening to the feedback that we get, and that will help inform future decisions.
I guess it’d be hard to say, but if something like Nightfall or night versions of maps were to return, would that be limited to Portal, or really, is the door just open for now?
Wiebe: It’s too early to say right now. I mean, again, we have got to look at the feedback and try to figure it out. The thing I do love about Portal is… If the community’s like, ‘We really want to play more of this. We wish we could do our own things,’ Portal is the place to go then to say, ‘Well, while you guys are going to work on exploring other night maps, if it’s something that’s popular, we want to build our own version, use that map, but we want to do it with these rules or these mechanics,’ so that they can do it in the immediacy rather than waiting to see what the dev team’s going to do in the future.
Now, the one thing I do want to stress, I know that it’s going to be a smaller map, and I want to make sure the community knows that they have been heard. We do have large maps – for example, in Battlefield Labs right now, we do have [Golmud Railway] being tested, which is one of the largest Battlefield maps. So, there are exciting things coming down the pipes as well that are being tested right now.
I do want to get back to the night gameplay, but since you brought up Golmud, I know you’re doing testing every day. Should players expect that to be a scaled-down version of the original map, like we saw with Operation Firestorm, in terms of size?
Wiebe: What I would stress right now is that we’ve heard the community that big maps are important. Right now, we have Golmud in Battlefield Labs testing, and look forward to more conversations about that in the future.
How does the Defense Testing Complex POI compare to other locations in Fort Lydon? Could you give us a tease of how it transforms that experience, and how much space it takes up on the map?
Wiebe: Yeah, we’re pretty excited about this addition. For me, Fort Lyndon has always been like a top-secret military base, and we want to have secrets. We want it to tell a story. It’s like peeling off that next layer of the onion, right? It’s like, OK, you played the surface, but now there’s more to it than what you saw. For us, it’s making sure that we expose these secret areas to players so that they know where to go. It’s a fairly significant POI, and it’s almost connecting, in a way, three different POIs.
Running right between those three POIs, there are different entrances. We’re going to mark a few of those entrances for players to find initially because we don’t want it to be such a good secret that nobody ever knows where to go and can’t find it. So, we’re going to help players identify a few of the different entrances. Then, there are many more exits and entrances that they’re going to discover over time. To make sure that players are incentivized for exploring, we’re going to put some of the best loot and most valuable loot inside of that POI at the launch of this POI. There are going to be rewards, but there’s also risk.
Of course, when you’re going in, it’s going to be, not as dark as I would say the Nightfall dark map, but I would call it moody, where it’s going to be a little bit lower light, and you can gain an advantage through your attachments and things like that to try to counterbalance it. This is where you’re going to have the best chance to find a lot of airstrikes, strike packages, legendary weapons, things like that. Where it’s worth the risk, but also if you’re zip-lining down into this bunker, there are going to be choke points that players are going to fight for control over.
So, it’ll definitely be a hotspot for players.
Wiebe: Exactly. Then, the other thing featured in REDSEC is that there’s also going to be a Gauntlet Nightfall event as well. That’s going to be a variation of Gauntlet that’s also going to take place in the Hagental Base, and it’s going to be built for trios for the first time in Gauntlet, and that’s going to feature three different mission types.
We’re going to have Vendetta, which is protecting your squad’s high-value target. We’re going to have Contract, which is where you need to wipe out an enemy squad, but if your squad gets wiped, you get eliminated. Then Heist, where you compete to get objectives and return it to your base, sort of like a capture the flag kind of thing. Of course, the emphasis is going to be on night vision goggles, balancing battery life, but it’ll be much longer battery life in Gauntlet, so it’ll feel really balanced.
Backtracking to Nightfall, in a blog post, Battlefield Studios talked about how it almost brings a stealth experience to Battlefield. Can you talk about what stealth looks like in a Battlefield multiplayer experience for Gauntlet and for the standard limited-time mode?
Wiebe: I think stealth can take many forms depending on who you ask. I think, really, it’s just about audio. It’s more magnified when you’re underground. When you can’t see as much, it’s about trusting what you hear. I know the audio team has been really working hard on improving the spatial audio, so being able to tell with a little more clarity what direction things are coming from.
Then, of course, it’s playing with the transitions between the light and the darkness. Where there’s a sweet spot, where you can try to sneak around. Where you’re just enough in the dark. Where you’re going to wait for people to go in the light and try to get an advantage on them when they’re transitioning, or taking off their night vision goggles, in order to try to capture that one moment to gain and press your advantage.
I’ve seen other games introduce night versions of maps. Does it make the experience scarier in any way, if that makes sense?
Wiebe: That’s a great question. I think that’s down to the individual, right?
Oh, sure. The playstyle.
Wiebe: Yeah. It’s like, for me, I’m reckless when I play – night vision or not. I’m just going for it. I’m the one that’s running, and my squad’s like, ‘Shhh! Slow it down. We’ll take the advantage!’ And I’m Leroy Jenkins. I’m going to run in, guns-a-blazing [laughs]. It really comes down to the playstyle, but I think, for me, it really is about learning the tactics and learning all the different grenade types and things that will create new advantages between your squad and your opponents to try to get the upper hand, especially when there’s competitive modes like Gauntlet where it’s elimination-based, and you need to press all of your advantages. Every elimination you get is a point for your team, and so you could win or lose by a single death depending on how you play. I think that for me is where the tactics really start to get refined.
So, the dark really is a tool for players to experiment with and use to their advantage on both sides.
Wiebe: Yeah, I think so.
Looking at gameplay across Battlefield 6, Battlefield Studios is always communicating with the community, putting out blog posts, and talking in detail about what’s coming. Can you give us a teaser regarding how the fundamentals of Battlefield 6 have been tweaked with the launch of Nightfall, how things are going to change, how movement’s going to feel, and details like that?
Wiebe: Unfortunately, I’m not the right person to get into that level of specificity with you. There are far more experienced specialists that can go into it. I know that there have been some blog posts shared very recently about some of the work that they’re doing on looking at the [time to kill]. All of it is being balanced both with community feedback and what we’re gaining from what the telemetry is telling us about the modes and the experiences, to try to make sure that we’re hitting that sweet spot.
The thing I want to reiterate is, we’re listening, and we’re reacting, and it’s going to continue that way for a very long time. We’re getting amazing feedback from the community, and we’re constantly trying to strive to make the best game possible. So we appreciate the community’s time that they take to share the details of what’s working and what’s not working for them, and we take it very seriously.
Obviously, there was a break with the delay. How is the team feeling after the launch of Season 2, and is the response from fans the one you were hoping for?
Wiebe: I think we’re very pleased with the launch of Season 2. I think the Contaminated map is doing really well. I think the reaction to the VL-7 experience has been pretty good, but we have a lot of work to do ahead of us, and I think, for me, it’s like, OK, Season 2, we’re happy with the way it launched, but we have a lot of stuff that we’re going to continue to work on and we’re far from done.
Some pockets of the community have been more vocal than others when it comes to what they want to see changed when it comes to Battlefield 6 post-launch content. Obviously, some plans have been in place for months and months and months. Has the team felt the need to cater more to player desires as post-launch support has continued?
Wiebe: I am not going to speak for everybody. My personal philosophy is that we launch the game that we want players to play, and it’s kind of our game, and we’re developing it over years. We’re testing it. The big addition for us was Battlefield Labs. Traditionally, you fire it out, and you hope you got everything right, and that everybody’s going to be happy. Battlefield Labs gave us an opportunity through development to really start to test with the community, to get early eyes to figure out what’s working, what’s not working. It’s really effective at looking at things like gameplay for map content, for mode content, and things like that. Where we haven’t had as much success are things like challenges and progression. Things that are harder in a way to test in a Labs environment because you need a longer cycle on that.
So, for me, once we’ve launched the game, it’s in the community’s hands to give us feedback. It becomes our game now. All feedback is important, and we weigh the community feedback, but also, like I said, we look at the data of what’s actually going on in telemetry. Sometimes it can be a perception problem. Sometimes it’s actually like, no, both sources of information are saying, ‘This is a big problem, and therefore we need to stop the plans we were going to do and redirect and start focusing on the things that we’re seeing identified.’ That’s the main thing to take away here: It’s not like, ‘Hey, we crafted this massive plan, and we’re going to hold to it.’ It’s like, no. Anything can change based on what is going on with the community, what is going on with the feedback, and what we’re seeing from the game.
You brought up Battlefield Labs. How did Battlefield Labs and that testing help shape Nightfall into what it is today, versus what it started with?
Wiebe: [Laughs]
It’s a long list, I’m sure.
Wiebe: Yeah. The earlier tests were very telling. It was things like the night vision goggles would take way too long in the transition, where it’s like, ‘Oh, man, I’m dying all the time, and I have no ability to react.’ Or people were using certain attachments to almost exploit the nature of darkness to the point where we had to readjust either the lighting or the time or the impact that you may feel when somebody, for example, throws a [Incendiary Grenade] at you, or you’re trying to transition from light to dark and how long it takes for your eyes to adjust.
We got a lot of good information on that, so that helps us refine the map layout, where there were a few too many choke points. We added alternative paths that could allow people to circumvent a choke point and now attack the enemy from a new angle, or find a wall to destroy, where they can now create their own advantage. I believe it plays a massively critical role in getting an early read on some things that could be a large misstep if you hadn’t otherwise validated it. I would express a huge thanks to all the players that do put their time into Battlefield Labs to provide the feedback that helps give us the data that we need to try to make the strongest seasonal releases we can.
So, it’s about refining that launch path, really, and that’s what you’ve seen with Nightfall?
Wiebe: To date, and I am personally excited to see how many more earlier, in-concept things we could put in Labs over time so that we can, in fact, get more early eyes on it. One of the things that we’ll be running is, with battle royale, we want to test a few different things with that. We want to get the community’s read. Again, things that can inform future seasons.
Is there anything else you’d like to add regarding Battlefield 6 and Nightfall, but also specifically why this entire Phase 2 update is worth jumping back in for?
Wiebe: I mean, I play almost every day. Obviously, I’m both a developer and a player, so when I’m not developing, I go home, and I play, and I’m personally excited just because it’s a bit of a change in atmosphere. Much like the VL-7 smoke that was introduced – which changed up how the game felt with the smoke and how it reacts to the map, how it changes your tactics, how it changes the way you perceive the game – it’s the same feeling I get from Nightfall. It’s something fresh that I can maybe break up my normal pattern of playing through Breakthrough, Conquest, and then Battle Royale. Now, I’m going to go, and I get to play Nightfall for a little bit, and then I’ll go back to my usual, right? We all do. We love going right back to Conquest and Breakthrough. Those are the mainstays, but it’s nice to have those pallet cleansers once in a while, just to get a chance to do something a little bit different for a bit.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
