Battlefield 6 reminds me of the best parts of the Battlefield games I love

For most of the 2010s, I actually preferred Battlefield to Call of Duty.

The destructive gameplay and large-scale battles of Battlefield 1943, Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, and Battlefield 4 appealed to me more than the twitchy, more traditional shootouts of Call of Duty.

Unfortunately, after the excellent World War I-set Battlefield 1, the series entered a bit of a dark period.

Battlefield V and 2042 did not live up to my expectations due to some experimental design decisions that did not pay off and their general lack of content and polish at release.

Plans for a Battlefield mobile game never materialized. As a result, Call of Duty has become my first-person shooter franchise of choice over the past eight years.

That all seems like it’s about to change with Battlefield 6.

This past weekend, I played through the game’s first open beta weekend and loved what I played.

EA has touted it as a return to form for the series, and that feels accurate as it taps into the controlled mayhem and destruction that made those earlier Battlefield titles so great while still delivering impressively scaled battles.

There’s a lot to do in the Battlefield 6 beta

The best modes and classes are back

For an open beta several months before launch, Battlefield 6’s features an impressive amount of content. There were four different modes to choose from: Conquest, Breakthrough, King of the Hill, and Domination.

At this point, Conquest and Breakthrough are synonymous with Battlefield as a series. The former sees two teams of players simultaneously fight over several different capture points on the map, while the latter splits the teams into attackers and defenders, with one team trying to take over capture points on the map section by section with a limited number of lives.

What both of these modes have in common is their impressive scale.

While Call of Duty games are often content with limiting matches to 12 to 24 players, Battlefield 6’s lobbies are much bigger, and the size of these battles reflects that.

Firefights are always chaotic. There’s always some capture point or battle to travel to and fight at, and the destruction these armies leave in their wake is always palpable.

Battlefield 6’s map design feels better than the previous games, with fewer wide-open spaces that feel like shooting galleries and different points of interest that are fun to navigate and fight in.

The King of the Hill and Domination modes, also available in this first weekend, were also solid, albeit much more standard for this kind of shooter.

The second open beta weekend is set to add two more modes to play: Rush and Squad Deathmatch.

I prefer the likes of Conquest and Breakthrough, as they feel more quintessentially Battlefield, but I’m sure all of those modes will do wonders in winning players from other shooters over.

At the very least, Battlefield 6 doesn’t suffer from a lack of compelling choices.

Battlefield 6 leans into what works for the series

Destruction, character classes, and massive battles

When I was in the thick of battle, Battlefield 6 felt like the games in the series that I adore.

While Battlefield 2042 tried changing this, the class system returns in its full form in Battlefield 6. The Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon classes all have distinct uses and abilities within a battle.

I often found myself drawn to the Assault class if I wanted to engage in firefights and the Support class if I wanted to be more of a team player and healer.

The classes feel well-balanced and like classic Battlefield, but have a lot of room to grow and be customized within their loadouts.

As I’ve mentioned, the scale of matches in Battlefield 6 is also pretty impressive, as teams have to focus on not completely whittling down their army’s reserves of soldiers as they storm each objective point.

The ability to drag downed allies to another location for revival also adds an interesting layer to matches, as it discourages instant respawning and makes each life my team has in a match feel more valuable.

And while it’s not quite as impressive as a game like The Finals, where levels are almost completely set in buildings, the environmental destruction in Battlefield 6 is dynamic and impressive, reminding me of the fun I had just blowing buildings up in Bad Company 2.

Battlefield 6 is this franchise at its best

You should check out the next open beta

In the early 2010s, the Battlefield series was able to tap into some core design tenets that made it truly stand on its own against Call of Duty.

Its large battles, bombastic destruction, and character class system weren’t like other shooters out there.

Over the past several years, it felt like the Battlefield series lost its identity in chasing trends and trying to have more of a mass appeal.

But with Battlefield 6, it feels like the developers that make up Battlefield Studios understand what people enjoyed about that golden age of the Battlefield series and are tapping back into what made those games work in all the right ways.

It’s clearly paying off, as the Battlefield 6 beta drew in an impressive number of players during the first weekend.

If you’re a lapsed Battlefield fan and haven’t tried it out yet, I highly recommend giving Battlefield 6 a shot when the second beta weekend begins on August 14.