Battlefield 6

Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series S|X, PC

Sometimes, you have to hit rock bottom in order to remember which way is up. DICE learnt this the hard way with the disastrous launch of 2021’s Battlefield 2042, a well-meaning entry which nevertheless lost sight of its namesake's military sim roots.

The resulting blowback paved the way for some serious soul searching on DICE's part who, alongside several other EA developers under the new grouping of Battlefield Studios, are now offering reparations in the form of Battlefield 6, a fan-pleasing throwback to the series' glory days of the 2010s.

First, the bad news. While no-one is picking up a Battlefield game for its single player offering, this latest campaign does little to suggest you should be. The backdrop this time is a geopolitical tug of war between an unravelling NATO and ruthless private military corporation Pax Armata, amidst which we find US Marine squad Dagger 1-3, who might just be the only ones capable of bringing an end to the conflict.

Dagger 1-3's band of brothers are a fairly archetypal bunch, with neither the gregarious personas of Bad Company nor the acting chops of Battlefield 4's Michael K Williams to help them stand out, and while the contemporary tone wisely takes inspiration from the likes of The Hurt Locker and Generation Kill, neither the quality of the writing nor its characters ever rises to meet those touchpoints.

That might be forgivable if the missions themselves felt more astutely authored, but almost every one resembles a hodgepodge of generic objectives that play out like a series of test run multiplayer matches against relatively hapless bots. At best, then, the campaign is a half-decent primer before heading online, which - thankfully - is where Battlefield 6 truly comes into its own.

When you have a balanced team all committed to playing their roles, the resulting harmony of squad-based warfare still sings like no other...

Battlefield Studios' approach to multiplayer — scaling it back and nailing the rudiments — sounds simple, and perhaps shallow, on paper, but it's precisely this calculated focus that makes Battlefield 6 play like a Greatest Hits album of the series itself. From crunchy, tightly-tuned gunplay and buildings that can crumble like biscuits, to that inimitably calibrated vehicular warfare across land and sky; everything fans know and love about Battlefield is here, and all of it operates like a dream, the alchemy between these ingredients cultivating endless "Only in Battlefield" moments which recent iterations have struggled to manifest.

After 2042's unfortunate experimentation with hero-style Specialists, Battlefield 6 brings back the series' iconic Class system, albeit with a few tempered modernisations. The Assault class is still the perfect everyman for leading the frontlines into action, Engineers remain adept at anti-vehicular warfare, Supports act as the lifeblood for any squad by replenishing supplies and defibrillating downed allies, while Recons are best placed as long-range lone warriors.

When you have a balanced team all committed to playing their roles, the resulting harmony of squad-based warfare still sings like no other, with smart, simple tweaks (such as the ability for all squadmates to revive each other regardless of Class) providing welcome refinements.

And as the first Battlefield game to leave last-gen consoles behind, Battlefield 6 is a thing of war-torn beauty. Stunningly rendered in eye-popping resolution, the game's environments are both vast and detailed, optimised to accommodate silky smooth, grand-scale warfare with surprisingly few bugs at launch. This production value is matched equally by the game's sound design, which perfectly balances amplitude with clarity in capturing the sheer noise and nuance of war's dynamic soundscape, from the crack of a distant sniper rifle to the infernal rumbling of an IVF tank.

If there's any real complaint to be said about multiplayer, it's that Battlefield 6's number of truly operatic, large-scale maps is limited to a small handful, with the game yet to offer a sandbox as madcap or memorable as, say, Siege of Shanghai with its collapsing skyscraper, or the ever-iconic Wake Island. And for all its grounded focus, the lack of new gimmicks does leave Battlefield 6 without its own signature feature, bereft of a USP in the vein of Battlefield 4's Levolution destruction system or the glorious Behemoth vehicles of Battlefield 1.

Still, you can understand why the team decided to avoid scope creep this time around, and the results speak for themselves. Indeed, Battlefield 6 perfects the fundamentals of Battlefield to a fault, and in doing so, offers a hugely successful foundation from which to build upon. It spells a bright future for a formerly beleaguered franchise, then, but regardless of what's next, this is already a Battlefield very much worth enlisting for.