Battlefield 6 vows to ditch CoD-style laserbeams and obliterate rooftop campers

If I haven't already made it clear, I loved the Battlefield 6 beta. It had its issues, sure, but I haven't felt this good about a new shooter in years. Much of the frustration I've seen from players online concerns itself with meagre map sizes and rapid time-to-kill. I would posit these issues often come down to the inconvenient truth that people are playing Battlefield 6 like Call of Duty, but I'm not going to deny there's some truth in these statements. Having had time to rifle through the troves of feedback from the series' biggest beta ever, the Battlefield team has announced massive changes to everything from weapon feel to movement. If they land, then expect BF6 to get a whole lot better.

Battlefield 6 is already shaping up to be one of the best FPS games I've played in recent memory, but I had to make some playstyle adjustments before I started frying. At first, I was taking every gunfight I could, often getting blasted by bunnyhopping enemies with weapons I felt I had no right to lose to (skill issue). In many ways, it felt like I was back in Black Ops 6, sans omnimovement. But, after I shook off my CoD habits and slowed the tempo down, the game became more tactical, and infinitely more enjoyable. As with the best BO6 loadouts, the best Battlefield 6 weapons will always offer the path of least resistance when it comes to recoil and TTK at range; it's the nature of the beast. However, this often leads to meta guns all blurring into one, indiscernibly-beamy mass.

Keen to avoid genre-endemic issues, the Battlefield team is undertaking a "general pass on recoil and tap-fire characteristics across all weapons, further emphasizing their unique feel and improving range differentiation." It's also working on making tap and burst fire a more efficient way to win duels. In theory, this should result in a more dynamic meta, and incentivize forming a basic understanding of which weapons are best suited to certain maps and modes. As an example of this, the M87A1 shotty now needs more pellets to secure a kill, so no more one-pumping players from a mile away - I've dealt with quite enough of that in Destiny 2…

While the modern shooter typically favors cracked movement, Battlefield 6 is tempering the freneticism and shifting away from the arcade-y feel that comes with it. "Momentum, especially horizontal speed, carried from a slide into a jump has been reduced," the feedback post reads. Additionally, "there is now a greater penalty for consecutive jumps, which lowers jump height when jumps are spammed. Firing while jumping or sliding will result in increased inaccuracy." While this won't remove bunnyhopping entirely, it does make it far more inconsistent. Slow down, Sonic.

Elsewhere in the open beta debrief, the team is cracking down on access to rooftops and other out-of-bounds areas players were unintentionally posting up on. While the Assault class will be getting a ladder in the future, that doesn't mean you'll be able to squirrel yourself away and laugh as you mercilessly mow down hordes of players.

Speaking of maps, the feedback regarding smaller maps has been heard loud and clear, though the team reaffirms that these won't be the only arenas on offer when the Battlefield 6 release date rolls around. Coming to Battlefield Labs are two new large-scale maps, Mirak Valley and BF3 fan-fave Operation Firestorm. To be honest, the changes already described should make the small-map experience substantially better, so let's not write them off just yet.

The full debrief is a bit of a beast, so really take your time digesting it all. Considering the Battlefield 6 beta registered over 92 million hours of gameplay, the biggest the series has ever run, I'm not surprised the dev feedback is so substantial.

While there's no sign of a new beta on the horizon, we're asked to "stay tuned for progress updates and future opportunities." Until then, brush up on your skills in more of the best multiplayer games, and, if necessary, update your rig to meet the Battlefield 6 system requirements ahead of launch.

If you've got any other sparkling ideas that'll make Battlefield 6 the best it can be, come and let us know in our community Discord server.