EA’s Battlefield 6 is one of the best-selling games of the generation, although the game has suffered from a significant decline in player count since launch. As Season 3 continues, the focus is on bigger maps and better visibility, but the developer collective of Battlefield Studios is still hoping for growth.
In a discussion with IGN, BF6 seasonal and competitive creative lead Ariel Giovannetti explained that the focus is on continuing to grow Battlefield 6 as an ecosystem. With the main game, RedSec, and Portal giving players more options than ever before, BF6 has the potential to become a larger community.
Giovannetti explained that the recent addition of night filters in Battlefield Portal are allowing fans to create their own variations of maps. As Battlefield devs expand their own sandbox, fans can tinker and create their own options, just like how Halo has Forge or Fortnite has UEFN. For Battlefield, that could be where growth comes from.
“With the community doing night versions of the maps, that’s exactly what we want,” Giovannetti said. “That’s the aspirational use of Portal that we were dreaming of when we released Portal. We want our community to feel free to find what works for them because what works for them is what works for us. We want to grow Battlefield as a community, not necessarily as a product, but as a community that has us as devs and the players working together to find what’s the best Battlefield that we can get.”
Giovannetti claimed that ‘Portal is critical for that” with Battlefield Studios “taking inspiration for Portal” to give players more tools and more creativity. This means that expanding the service is a major focus so that fans “have more tools and more ways to modify the sandbox that Battlefield is”.
Battlefield certainly isn’t alone in its push towards user-generated content. Halo’s community has been supported by fan-made maps and game modes since Halo 3, and Fortnite’s hyper-focus on UGC has seen Epic pay creators over a billion for their Roblox-esque games.
Of course, the future can’t be completely stuck on improving Portal, but the entire Battlefield 6 experience. If players aren’t engaging with the core BF6 experience, they won’t engage with the custom game modes in Portal, either.
With that in mind, Giovannetti says that “the game is trending in the direction we thought it would”, even with the game’s prior controversies. “There’s a lot of micro changes that are done based on the feedback that we get so we can align the implementation of what we are doing,” they said. “But the roadmap, I feel like we’re all feeling pretty confident because what we enjoy of Battlefield is what our community enjoys about Battlefield. And there’s a line where we try new things and there’s a line where we go to the classics, but how we move, it comes in a more fluid way because we are a live service.”
Battlefield 6 is expected to receive many more years of support with years of updates planned for the live-service game. Right now, the game is available on PC, Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5.
