Battlefield 6 announcements are just around the corner. It’s May now, and with every Battlefield teaser, announcement, and trailer arriving in May since the beginning of time, it looks likely more information is coming in the next few days.
If the rumors are to be believed, Battlefield 6 is a modern shooter, akin to Battlefield 3 or 4, set in the near future, with fully destructible cities, and with enough server space for absolutely massive multiplayer games.
Despite all that, I hope Battlefield 6 takes a lesson from Battlefield 1’s book, arguably one of the best FPS games released in the last decade.
Yes, World War One and 2030 modern combat can hardly be compared, but it’s the sound design, the gritty atmosphere, the moments of sheer Battlefield brilliance, that I hope Battlefield 6 retains from Battlefield 1.
Storming across the cliffs of Monte Grappa while an Airship tumbles from the sky in a horrible fireball, thirty players tucked up in a bunker with LMGs and grenades, and two soldiers going on a wild mission across the cliffs in a motorbike with a sidecar: Battlefield 1 had some of the most Battlefield moments of any game in the franchise.
I’ve often heard from diehard Battlefield fans that the gunplay and era of Battlefield 1 just didn’t appeal to them, and that’s fine. The chaotic and often unrealistic reimagining of World War One was not everyone’s cup of cold British tea sipped in a muddy hole.
But the game did so many things right. Grand Operations is some of the finest organic storytelling I’ve experienced in any multiplayer shooter. The tug and pull of two sides (with no skill-based matchmaking, remember) battling over objectives in grueling bullet-slogs that could last up to an hour provided gameplay like no other FPS.
The variety of gameplay was such that no two matches felt the same. No matter whether you were playing on a server with the same three Operations maps on rotation. You never quite knew what was going to happen. Would the enemy team have a tanker capable of holding down a point for 25 minutes, or would you be cursed with a player on your team sat 400 meters away in an artillery truck? Battlefield 1 matches always felt fresh, one of the reasons why it still has a solid player base to this day.
It’s difficult to talk about the success of Battlefield 1 without mentioning the failures of Battlefield V. DICE were on to a winning formula, but with Battlefield V they failed to deliver anything like the merits of its predecessor.
Shrouded in controversy, some of Battlefield V’s better areas were often overlooked, but it was fundamentally a very different game. There were glimpses of what might have been possible with its final Pacific update, but not long after the update further development of the game was canceled, as DICE and various other studios turned their attention towards the next game in the franchise.
This leads us to Battlefield 6. There is a lot resting on the success of the game. With several studios working on the title, and at least two or three years of development time, many fans are hoping for a return to the classic Battlefield experience.
In all the hype, there are also worries. Having several studios working on a game is not always a good thing. Design direction can take several different routes. This is clear from the difference in Battlefield V’s map design between DICE LA and the original DICE studio, for example.
I just hope that Battlefield 6 learns from Battlefield 1: storytelling, atmosphere, and dynamic battles are what the franchise is all about. I can give or take the 200 player servers and destructible buildings. Battlefield 1 offered more than that, and I hope Battlefield 6 does as well.
