Battlefield 6 is currently ravaging the FPS genre with some of the most fun multiplayer shooting I’ve experienced in years. While the series has existed for decades now, the destruction-filled, class-based multiplayer game is now more popular than its ever been before.
While BF6 has launched with some major issues—such as the game’s custom search function being annoyingly broken “by design”—the game is mostly great. There’s a fun core combat loop, incredible satisfying destruction and some fun maps, and the game should only get better over time. But why is the game so enthralling?
Speaking to GQ, Battlefield veteran David Sirland explained that the series persists because of two things: the game’s niche combat loop and the scale of its ambition. Battlefield runs on its own tech purpose designed to fulfil its needs, and DICE never cuts back on what it wants to do… even if that results in missteps like 2042.
“When I started, Battlefield was a niche of a niche, it was almost the Dungeons and Dragons of shooters,” Sirland told the outlet, but producer Jeremy Chubb explains that “Battlefield has survived for this long because the core of the experience was so ambitious back then.”
Of course, Battlefield 6 comes after the worst game in the modern series: 2042. While BF6 is being touted as a return to form for the series, focusing on what made the franchise so popular with BF3 and BF4, a lot of the game’s success is due to learning from what went wrong with its predecessor. Maps are no longer vast and empty, the massive player count has been reduced, destruction feels more visceral, etc.
“2042 helped us learn what not to do,” Sirland told the outlet, “We actually secretly tested a lot of stuff that’s in Battlefield 6 in 2042 without telling anyone.”
Can you throw all the diamonds into the running carts? Try now!
Click here to play Diamond Run FRVR in your browser.
For now, the new game has stuck the landing with more players on launch day than any other game in the franchise, but it’s also about keeping those players. Will there be enough maps post-launch that offer new experiences? Will some of the major issues players are facing actually be addressed? And will EA ruin it with annoying crossover skins that break the modern military aesthetic?
A lot of the game’s continued success, or at least its positive sentiment, depends on how much EA can constrain itself from ruining the game after release, which may have been made harder following the company’s massive $55 billion acquisition.
