Sometimes a game comes along at just the right time to chime with a huge audience – from Fortnite's pivot to a battle royale mode in the first place, to Call of Duty: Warzone's launch just as lockdowns started to spread around the world. That sort of lightning isn't easy to bottle, but I think there's a chance EA is in the process of doing so with Battlefield 6.
The first of its two open beta weekends just wrapped up, and I'm one of likely millions of people who dropped into it to check out how the game's shaping up ahead of its release in early October. I came away absolutely flabbergasted by the quality on show, and by a formula that might finally see Battlefield go truly head-to-head with COD in terms of popularity.
That isn't just pure hype, either – the numbers are persuasive. The BF6 beta managed to post a bigger concurrent player count on Steam than COD has ever managed. When you imagine the numbers it will have been doing on console, it's probably the first game in the franchise to give some Activision executives the fear – albeit this beta is free to access, while the final game won't be.
Still, it's a marker of the fact that many people have been wanting something a little grittier, more stripped-back and authentic than what COD has served up recently, or indeed what EA made with Battlefield 2042 a few years ago. That misstep seems to have been corrected now, in style.
I played at least a dozen hours of the beta on my PS5 Pro, almost entirely in parties and squads with friends, and we couldn't get over how much fun we were having. The game's visuals and sound design are exemplary, in the first place, with the PS4 and Xbox One finally having been dropped.
That means proper next-gen presentation (and I can't imagine what it would have looked like on my Nvidia 5070 Ti PC, which is in storage while I slowly but surely move house). The upgraded destruction is a huge boost to the sense of immersion, too – the first time a rocket hits a building, you really, really know about it, and the amount of debris and dust thrown up is mad.
There's some consternation about squad roles, now that classes are back but largely with unlocked weapon options – we voted with our feet by sticking to the playlist that re-locked those weapons, and it worked perfectly. Every class has a role, and a four-man squad with one of each can be a super-powerful mobile unit.
All the hits were there to enjoy, from experimenting with C4 on vehicles, laying traps for opposition tanks, and sneaking past enemy lines to capture a point and draw their attention elsewhere. It's a formula that only the Battlefield games have ever mastered, with COD's Ground War a pale imitation.
Now we're all bereft for a few weeknights before the second beta weekend starts on Thursday – and when that one ends, it's going to be an unbearable wait until October for the game to release fully. The fact that our attention was grabbed so persistently despite only having a handful of small maps to rotate through is extremely promising, though.
To have an entire weekend of social gaming like this, all in what's essentially a free demo, felt just amazing. With gunplay as satisfying as this already, and visuals that match the excellent sound, we could be in for a multiplayer shooter for the ages – if Battlefield Studios can take some of the feedback on board and stick the landing.
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