Home
Games
Games Reviews
Battlefield 6 Review: EA's Military Shooter Returns to Form

Battlefield 6 Review: EA's Military Shooter Returns to Form

Name: Battlefield 6 Review: EA's Military Shooter Returns to Form
Item: Battlefield 6

Battlefield 6 refines the series’ fundamentals in a near-perfect technical package that looks and plays as good as Battlefield has ever been.

Written by Manas Mitul, Edited by David Delima | Updated: 19 November 2025 16:15 IST

Battlefield 6 Review: EA's Military Shooter Returns to Form

Photo Credit: EA

Battlefield 6 released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X on October 10

Click Here to Add Gadgets360 As A Trusted Source

Highlights

Battlefield 6 returns to a modern setting
The game brings back a single-player campaign
Battlefield 6 is developed by Battlefield Studios

Military shooters are a monopoly. The Call of Duty behemoth has muscled into the genre and put up tall walls around it, and even with the roller coaster quality of COD releases, people pay up every year and walk through the door. But one can hardly blame Activision for capitalising on its competitors' blunders. Electronic Arts never quite came close to toppling Call of Duty from its perch with its Battlefield franchise, but it did manage to erode the series' goodwill with Battlefield 2042 and Battlefield V.

Four years later, EA is back with Battlefield 6, trying to take a hammer to the house that Activision built. The publisher, clearly, has learnt from its mistakes and realised that innovation doesn't mean you start fixing things that weren't really broken. There's a reason you can still find a sizeable number of people on the servers of Battlefield 3, 4, and 1. Those three games put the spotlight on the series' trademark expansive, all-out warfare and allowed players to find emergent chaos in their flexible, but robust sandbox.

Battlefield 6 does exactly that. It finds a guiding light in the modern era military operations of Battlefield 3 and 4 and brings back almost all the Battlefield staples that seemed to have been abandoned in the last game. Class-based squads; total environmental destruction; and the intense boots-on-the-ground, birds-in-the-sky large-scale online battles the series is known for — all of it is back. Battlefield 6 refines the series' fundamentals in a near-perfect technical package that looks and plays as good as Battlefield has ever been.

But there are some missteps, too. While Battlefield 6 leans heavily into all-out warfare, its playgrounds fall literally short of accommodating 32v32 modes at a scale seen in previous games. The single-player campaign on offer is a consistently underwhelming and often abysmal experience. And there's still no server browser for standard multiplayer modes. But the positives here far outweigh the negatives. Battlefield 6 is explosive, immersive, and incredibly fun, and it still offers large-scale multiplayer battles that you can't find anywhere else.

EA Sports FC 26 Review: For the Players

Let's get the single-player campaign out of the way before diving into multiplayer, the reason why anyone plays Battlefield anyway. Single-player campaigns in multiplayer shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield have often felt like an appendage. It's there, but then no one really cares. Most spend a few hours, if at all, fiddling around these campaigns before deciding that shooting at real people online is just more fun. But that notion is also a little unfair to some really good single-player campaigns in shooters through the years.

Call of Duty, especially, has a history of cinematic and memorable single-player campaigns that feature blockbuster set-pieces, some enduring characters, and authentic atmosphere. Think the shock and subversion of “No Russian,” the chilling realism of “Clean House,” and the cold sweat tension of “All Ghillied Up”.

But Battlefield has always lagged COD in that department. I really liked the more personal war stories that played out across different theatres of World War I in Battlefield 1 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 remains the best of Battlefield campaigns, but aside from a few highs, the series' single-player offerings have largely felt like a watered-down version of its multiplayer madness. Battlefield 6 doesn't do anything to change that. The campaign in the new Battlefield is sterile and cliched, offering only comically cartoonish “oorah” machismo more fit for a straight to DVD action movie.

Battlefield 6's campaign is by the numbers
Photo Credit: EA/ Screenshot - Manas Mitul

The Battlefield 6 campaign puts you in charge of Dagger 13, an elite squad of soldiers tasked to stop the aggressions of a private military force that threatens the global order. This force, Pax Armata, somehow magically has unlimited resources, indeterminate funding, and absolute freedom to transport and deploy anywhere on the planet. The private militia mounts an unprovoked attack on NATO forces deployed in Georgia and assassinates the NATO secretary general. Now, everyone is a target and even the US is under threat.

Sounds ridiculous? That's because it is. And even if you let the logical implausibility slide, the premise and the narrative that follows is completely flavourless. The entire campaign, which you can tick off in about five hours (and once you're done, EA tells you to uninstall it, as if its presence is embarrassing), feels like the bullet point lowdown of every single-player shooter campaign ever: there's a sniper mission, there's a beach assault, there's a halo jump, but none of these moments are executed with conviction or flair. There's an attempt to make these sequences cinematic and thrilling, but without a strong foundation of a story and characters to latch on to, the missions feel hackneyed.

The Battlefield 6 campaign has a few epic moments, but lacks the finesse of Call of Duty
Photo Credit: EA/ Screenshot - Manas Mitul

Battlefield 6 tries to utilise the squad system from its multiplayer in the single-player campaign by allowing players to issue commands to AI-controlled teammates that each come with their own abilities. But contrary to multiplayer, where squad members are real players online with whom you can work together in unscripted ways, squad play ends up harming the experience in the single-player campaign. The “help” your squad members provide is too rigid to replicate the emergent team-based multiplayer gameplay. You can order your squad members to engage the enemy, or spot them and mark their location in front of you, but that ends up chipping away at the tension and challenge from encounters.

It also doesn't help that your squad mates don't have a shred of personality. They're all interchangeable grunts who add little to the dynamic of the team. Battlefield 6 doesn't make an attempt to make them likeable or relatable or memorable. On the action front, the campaign does have some cinematic set pieces that, combined with detailed visuals and immersive audio design, deliver the thrills. But often the execution of these sequences lacks the polish seen in Call of Duty campaigns. For instance, there's a mission called “No Sleep” in the Battlefield 6 campaign that is clearly inspired by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's “Clean House” mission from 2019, where a team of soldiers sneak through a residence, room by room, in search of their targets. But, Battlefield 6's take on the mission lacks the tension and immersion of the original.

Squad play shines in Battlefield 6's multiplayer
Photo Credit: EA

Where Battlefield outshines Call of Duty though is in its large-scale multiplayer modes. Battlefield has always stood out with its focus on all-out warfare — that feeling of being dropped into a conflict operating at grand scale. Dogfights in the sky, tanks rolling by you, attack helicopters whirring above, and all of it working in tandem on a single map. Battlefield 6 puts its faith in the series' winning formula comes out with flying colours. EA has taken notes from the contemporary settings of Battlefield 3 and 4 and played it safe in its latest release. There are no big gambles to be found in the Battlefield 6 multiplayer experience, but the game comfortably achieves what it sets out to do.

Battlefield 6 launched with nine maps and added another one with the first phase of its Season 1 update. The maps feature diverse and destructible environments, several points of interest and tactical positions, and support both expansive and close-quarters game modes. There are dense urban maps like Siege of Cairo and Empire State, where the battle takes place across street corners and rooftops. Here, destructible buildings and walls can hand you the tactical edge. These maps are also smaller and built for an intense, close-quarters experience, even though larger modes like Conquest are supported.

Battlefield 6's Manhattan Bridge map features a dense urban layout
Photo Credit: EA/ Screenshot - Manas Mitul

Then there are larger, flatter maps like Liberation Peak, Operation Firestorm, and Mirak valley, that serve as all-out war sandboxes. These maps aren't packed with structures and feature open fields and mountainsides. Here, mastering vehicular combat is crucial for your team's success. But even as infantry, you can swing the tide of the battle if you play to the objectives and act as a good squadmate. The traditional classes are back, allowing you to deploy as Assault, Engineer, Support, or Recon. Each class comes with specific gadgets and abilities that make playing as that class fun and different. But EA misses a trick by not locking weapons for each class, allowing players to jump in with weapon types of their choice irrespective of the class they pick.

You do get weapon-locked playlists, but since they're optional, you rarely find players there. Classes are balanced well and feel distinct if you adhere to their respective playstyles. As a Support class, you could ignore the part where you shoot at the other team and focus on reviving and resupplying your squad and team. And as Recon, you dig deep into a sniper's nest and pick out enemies from far. Even the Assault class, which embodies the base run-and-gun experience in multiplayer, has a few tricks up its sleeve. It helps if you're really good at shooting, but you could also deploy a ladder to reach a rooftop or a ledge and gain tactical edge on the enemy.

Operation Firestorm is a returning large map from Battlefield 3
Photo Credit: EA/ Screenshot - Manas Mitul

I tried out faster, smaller modes like Team Deathmatch and King of the Hill, where Battlefield 6 largely feels like a more grounded imitation of Call of Duty. These modes are fun and frenetic, but the game's truest experience is found in its large-scale modes like Conquest, Breakthrough, and Escalation. Here, Battlefield 6 distinguishes itself from every other shooter. In these all-out warfare modes, you feel like a cog in a churning machine, an instrument playing its part in a violent orchestra. These modes are especially fun when you're part of a squad that's committed to working together.

And it's in these large-scale battles that you get to witness Battlefield moments. Anyone who's been a Battlefield fan over the years knows about them or has been a part of one. A Battlefield moment is when someone pulls an outrageous and epic move that embodies the unscripted chaos of the series. It could be an incredible sniper shot, a fighter jet manoeuvre that could put Top Gun's Maverick to shame, or a player taking out a tank in the most comical way you can imagine.

Ghost of Yotei Review: Sucker Punch's Samurai Story Soars Despite Playing It Safe

Battlefield moments can be found in the game's large-scale multiplayer maps
Photo Credit: EA/ Screenshot - Manas Mitul

And powering it all is Battlefield 6's robust mechanical and technical foundations that, despite some lingering issues and inevitable strain, hold up really well. Perhaps the most talked about gameplay mechanic in the game is its movement system. It's more kinetic than it has even been in a Battlefield game, but it stops short of being weightless and floaty like the movement in Call of Duty. You won't see players jumping like bunnies and slipping around like a fish on a water slide in online matches. But there's a dynamism to all your actions here that emphasise nimble movement without sacrificing realism. This applies to how you automatically pop out of cover when you aim down sights, or how you can drag your downed squadmates out of the line of fire before reviving them.

Gunplay, which is the most important aspect of a shooter, is both familiar and fresh. It feels snappier with a quicker time-to-kill — something that seems to have been borrowed from Call of Duty. Weapons are responsive and feel distinct from each other, but there are legitimate issues with hit registration. Aiming, too, isn't perfect and needs to be more responsive to player input.

The Battlefield 6 multiplayer, overall, does suffer from other problems, too. Perhaps the most pressing of these is the sheer lack of a massive map. The maps available in the game at launch, and the one added in subsequent Season 1 update, feel restrictive to the stretched-out simulation of war in modes like Conquest and Breakthrough. Battlefield 6 also suffers from its sluggish progression systems. Despite completing daily and weekly challenges and devoting hours to specific classes and weapons, it takes ages to unlock new weapons. With sustained play, weapon attachments unlock fairly regularly, but weapon skins, stickers, and charms always seem out of reach.

You can drag downed squad mates out of the line of fire to revive them
Photo Credit: EA

The lack of a mandated weapon-locked class system is also detrimental to true Battlefield experience, and so is the missing server browser for regular multiplayer modes. A server browser has been series staple until Battlefield 1 and it doesn't really feel like a Battlefield game without it. There's also the issue of finding Asian servers populated with bots in certain game modes. But these gripes can be addressed in future updates and largely fail to dent the multiplayer experience, which remains thrilling, immersive, and uniquely social in its own way.

And it does help that it looks jaw-droppingly good. As a visual package, Battlefield 6 stuns with its dense and detailed environments. The screen is always packed with things to look at, but still maintains a visual clarity and harmony. Even when gameplay is at its chaotic best, the visuals bring a sense of consistency and reliability to the action. The lighting is excellent, too, and by opting not to implement ray tracing, Battlefield Studios does wonders for the game's performance. Battlefield 6 runs near flawlessly on the PS5, rarely dropping below 60fps even when everything around you is blowing up. Considering the severe issues that plagued Battlefield 2042 at launch and coloured the game's perception forever, Battlefield 6's problem-free performance is one of its biggest strengths.

Battlefield 6 features detailed and immersive visuals
Photo Credit: EA/ Screenshot - Manas Mitul

It's evident that EA has a win on its hands with the newest Battlefield. It has taken two misfiring entries and considerable course correction to bring the series back to where it belongs. Battlefield 6 isn't the best the franchise has ever been and it's not remotely as ambitious and risky as Battlefield 1, but it does mark an undeniable return to form for Battlefield. The single-player campaign feels little more than an afterthought, but the game's robust multiplayer has all the ingredients to become a long-term success for EA.

Battlefield 6 also finally brings a bit of competition for Call of Duty. Activision's dominance in the multiplayer shooter space has gone unchecked and unchallenged for far too long. A great Battlefield game will never knock off the juggernaut off its perch, but it can rock the boat. Strong competition, in the end, will only benefit players. EA has invested a lot to put Battlefield back on the map, and it might be a while before we know if the big bets pay off. But for now, Battlefield 6 feels like the series has found its identity again.

Battlefield 6

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Good
Excellent and immersive multiplayer
Satisfying gunplay
Large-scale multiplayer modes
Robust performance
State of the art visuals

Bad
Underwhelming single-player campaign
Sluggish multiplayer progression
Lack of truly massive maps

Read detailed Electronic Arts Battlefield 6 review

Genre Shooter

Platform PlayStation 5 (PS5), Xbox Series S/X, PC: Windows

Modes Single-player, Multiplayer

Series Battlefield

PEGI Rating 18+

More Electronic Arts Games

Comments

Get your daily dose of tech news, reviews, and insights, in under 80 characters on Gadgets 360 Turbo. Connect with fellow tech lovers on our Forum. Follow us on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News for instant updates. Catch all the action on our YouTube channel.

Further reading: Battlefield 6, Battlefield 6 Review, EA, Battlefield Studios, Electronic Arts, Call of Duty, PS5

Manas Mitul

Email Manas Mitul

In his time as a journalist, Manas Mitul has written on a wide spectrum of beats including politics, culture and sports. He enjoys reading, walking around in museums and rewatching films. Talk to Manas about football and tennis, but maybe don’t bring up his video game backlog. More