By Joseph Luster

EA and the team at developer Battlefield Studios (Dice) are betting big on Battlefield 6, which aims to take the series back to its roots while offering the most expansive multiplayer options to date and the return of the single-player campaign for which many have been clamoring. Whatever you missed most during 2021’s sortie, the multiplayer-only Battlefield 2042, you’ll likely find it here in some form. Can it take down Call of Duty in 2025 and beyond, though? We’ll find out this October!

Some folks have already found out, or at least have started forming opinions on the new entry, thanks to the series’ biggest-ever open beta. Players were able to dive into the multiplayer and give it a test spin from August 9-10 and 14-17—Early Access players got it a couple days earlier than that, too—and there are a bunch of things to take away and consider as we build up to the full game’s launch on October 10.

As far as setups are concerned, Battlefield 6 plops us smack dab in the not-so-distant future of 2027. A “high-profile assassination” has provided a major shake-up around the globe, with various European countries leaving NATO in its wake as the U.S. and its allies struggle to pick up the pieces. With a power vacuum established, the huge private military corporation known as PAX ARMATA aims to fill in the gap by any means necessary.

One of the key updates in Battlefield 6 is mobility. The heart of movement and gunplay this time around is the Kinesthetic Combat System, which also offers up new tactical options that make it easier to assist your teammates. Drag and Revive can help pull them away from imminent danger, and weapons can be mounted on walls to cut down on recoil concerns. Supporting all this is the return of an improved class system, opening up avenues for experimentation with classes like Assault, Engineer, Recon and Support, each with certain tools that are unique to their class.

Destruction is also back in the mix, adding in a dash of enhanced freedom as you bust up the combat arena to open up new strategic possibilities. Anyone who digs experimentation in their online shooters will likely appreciate the opportunity to break the landscape apart to form new paths and get the drop on their enemies in unexpected ways.

Speaking of experimentation, a deluge of players got time in during the first weekend of the beta back in August. During its peak, more than half a million concurrent Steam players were logged, so naturally there was plenty of feedback to soak in after the dust had settled. One of the quibbles during week one had to do with TTD (Time to Death), which many players experienced as seemingly instantaneous at times. There’s certainly skill involved when playing online, but even the devs at Dice themselves were attempting to gather video examples of the “suspected super bullet” phenomenon that had players losing rounds in a flash.

While multiplayer remains the bread and butter of the Battlefield series—something that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon—the return of the campaign is a big deal for a lot of people (myself included!). At the time of this writing it’s unclear exactly how long it can be expected to last, but if Battlefield wants to continue to compete with the Call of Duty series it’s going to have to cater to both single and multiplayer audiences. Let us have a few hours of big-budget bombast before throwing us into the online fray for the foreseeable future.

Genre: Shooter
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series, PC
Publisher: EA
Available: October 10, 2025

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