Battlefield 6 Early Beta: The Good, the Bad, and the Amazing

Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up

Battlefield 6's beta has been available for a couple of days now, and ahead of the open beta weekend, I wanted to give my thoughts on the experience after playing for what is now 15 hours total of Conquest.

Firstly, let's cut to the chase. Out of the three Conquest maps available during the beta, I can safely say this is the most fun I have had in a Battlefield game since Battlefield 3, which was my first significant Battlefield experience. Battlefield 6 feels like a nice mixture between BF3 and BF4, but with a nice fresh coat of paint, drastically improved sound design, and, of course, unmatched destruction. Before getting into the specifics, I can say there is much, much more good here than bad, with only a few minor critiques so far. None of which are performance-based (framerates/crashes), more so weapon/class balancing, and minor bugs here and there.

The Good

• Sound Design
• Destruction
• Gunplay
• Vehicles
• Drag revive
• Great in-game performance

The wait has been worth it for Battlefield 6, and judging from the gameplay I have experienced, I was immediately blown away by the immediate intensity of the gameplay. From the minute you start running with your squad, explosions are erupting around you and your team, vehicles are rolling in laying down fire, allies are being dragged away to be revived, and the brutal dance between the two enemies begins. The immediate standout point for me was the sound design. Boy oh boy, does this Battlefield sound fantastic.

With a pair of headphones, you are immediately locked into the intensity of the Battlefield, as tanks are firing off shells, vehicles moving alongside you as you are running, helicopters and planes flying overhead, and the nasty crack of a sniper shot whizzing by your ear. There is also the meaty sound of structures falling after being blasted by an explosive or a tank exploding. Each of these is distinctly impressive. This is genuinely a fantastic aspect of Battlefield 6, and I cannot give high enough praise to the team that worked on the sound design.

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Out of the three maps available for Conquest, two are relatively close-quarters, while the third is very open. The gunplay in the two close-quarters maps is very fun. Most players are rocking the Assault and Support classes on these maps, with a few taking Engineer for dealing with vehicles. The gunplay is satisfying and best enjoyed when moving with your squad, which is a really nice aspect as it makes the game feel team/squad-based and not solo-able. This aspect is reminiscent of earlier Battlefield games and is truly at the essence of what makes Conquest such an enjoyable game mode.

New mechanics such as being able to jump onto the back of a tank for a quick ride-a-along, or being able to drag a downed ally while reviving are a super nice touch, particularly the latter as it creates some truly awesome moments such as when an ally gets downed in the open. You throw down a smoke and drag them to safety behind cover.

Vehicles feel very nice as well, each being prominent and also countered by enough Engineers with RPGs, or dedicated environmental weaponry designed to take out vehicles with heavy artillery.

Throughout my now 15 hours playing the game, I haven't experienced a single crash, nor any bad performance problems such as framerate drops, hitches, or network issues. This is an extremely smooth beta experience. It's somewhat heavy on GPU performance, but considering the amount that is happening on-screen, I can say it's lighter than I expected. With an RTX 5080 and an AMD Ryzen 9800X3D, I was able to achieve an average of 180FPS at 2560 x 1440p with fully maxed graphics settings. I will be following up with a separate performance article on this, with the technical specifics.

The Bad

• Some weapons need rebalancing
• Lack of animation on some players
• Allied teammates glitching briefly
• Environmental assets glitching briefly

There aren't a few things that are straight up "bad" in Battlefield 6, but there are certainly some things that I believe warrant some rebalancing, or at the very least reconsidering. For example, the starter SMG (SGX) appears to be far more versatile and generally superior than the starter Assault class weapon (M433). This is one example of what can be generally described as Time-to-Kill timers for certain weapons at certain distances.

While this does fall into the "bad" category, I can say this isn't a totally game-breaking problem, nor is it totally unexpected, as it's part of the development process of a shooter title on its way to launch. Roll out the beta > gather valuable data on what needs to be tweaked ahead of launch > implement those changes > and launch. This will undoubtedly be followed by further rebalancing as the game reaches the wider public and even more data is gathered.

Other small critiques would be the lack of animation for players catching a ride on the back of a tank. Currently, players look very static when hitching a ride, and it's somewhat jarring to see such static models in a chaotic battlefield. Another downside is the player model glitches, which only appear to happen momentarily for allied players (thankfully). The problem also appears client-sided as well, meaning it only happens for the viewer and not the player themselves. These glitches last a few seconds at most, and sometimes an allied player will shake sporadically, then snap back into place.

In the same line as glitches, I have noticed a few environmental assets being completely out of place following the destruction of a structure or building. An example of this would be floating walls, or timber that was meant to have fallen to the ground to become rubble. These instances were few and far between, and weren't game-breaking, just noticeable.

The Amazing + Suggestions

The destruction in Battlefield 6 is one big highlight here, and is something that is truly remarkable to experience. It's intense, rich, immersive, and captures the rawness of what this game can provide a player. What makes it so good is that destruction can be used offensively and defensively, which is fantastic as it means players won't just obliterate the entire map the first chance they get. Moreover, the map doesn't end up completely flat either, as some parts of structures cannot be destroyed, providing permanent cover and counter-play to vehicles. From what I have played so far, it's a very good mix of both.

Suggestions

• Weapon rebalancing (TTK), possibly added recoil or bullet damage reduction at a distance for rapid-fire weapons
• Small animations for players holding onto the back of a tank
• Ability to drag downed allies in different directions (currently only drag backwards)