Battlefield 6 hands-on: EA’s next roll of the Dice bets on destruction, scale and rock solid gameplay

In a world where Call of Duty refuses to take itself seriously, there has never been a better time for Battlefield to return.

It’s been a decade since both FPS giants used to battle it out every Christmas, and in the time since, both franchises have gone in wildly different directions.

Call of Duty maintains its annual release schedule, buoyed by the extremely popular free-to-play battle royale Warzone, whereas Battlefield feels like a series that it desperately trying to regain its identity.

The first steps towards that can already be felt in what we’ve played of Battlefield 6.

The last release in the series, Battlefield 2042, was met with player revolt over the Specialist system, which saw the well-loved class system ripped out and replaced with the new character selection mechanic. The response to the change eventually became so overwhelming that classes were added back in 2042.

Battlefield 6 is a return to what made the series great. It feels like a direct sequel to Battlefield 4 in many ways, a refinement of the classic formula brought up to 2025 standards, and a focus on combat, map design, and objective-based gameplay.

Much of the information around the game has been among the worst-kept secrets in the industry. Battlefield 6 has been heavily tested for months, and it shows. This is a game that feels confident in its modes, maps, and gunplay.

The game’s four classes – Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon – all feel distinct, but are also customizable enough that we never felt trapped by the class that we chose to play.

Each class has a signature trait that gives them an edge over the others. For example, when a Recon player is aiming down sights, they’ll automatically tag enemies for the rest of their team.

This feels like a good balance between making every class viable and making sure they are customizable. One of the great things about Battlefield is that if you’re having a terrible game, it’s entirely within your power to engage with another set of mechanics to score points and contribute to the time. The wider customisation of the four anchor classes makes it far easier to have fun in every round, even if you spent the first five minutes being blown to pieces.

Destruction, which Dice says is something it can do better than any other developer, plays a huge role in Battlefield 6. Everything breaks, collapses, and crumbles as you’d expect it to. If enemies are in the room above you, blow the floor out from beneath them. Destroy cover, send RPGs flying through the windows of camping spots, it’s all designed to give you as many options as possible.

While things don’t go to the same extremes as Battlefield 4’s “levolution,” which saw entire skyscrapers crumble in the middle of matches, it creates chaos in admist the heavy firefights. This destruction is best seen in new maps like one set amidst a pair of New York construction sites. It’s almost difficult to see the squads of enemies as chunks of plywood and dust are torn up around you.

Battlefield 6 will also feature a full single-player campaign, something famously completely missing from Battlefield 2042. A full reveal of the game’s single-player offering is planned for the future, but if the multiplayer’s gunplay and locations are the basis, we’re looking forward to see it.

So far, so good. The best thing we can say about Battlefield 6, based on our time with the game so far, is that it’s easily the best the series has felt since Battlefield 4. The battles feel epic in scale, without maps having to be battle royale-sized, and classes bring a Battlefield feeling back to the series, which Dice was drifting away from.

Most importantly, gunplay is satisfying, and the destruction is dynamic. Those two boxes being ticked will likely be enough for most Battlefield players, but so far, Battlefield 6 feels like much more than simply ticking boxes. It’s the Battlefield game that fans of the franchise in its prime would expect from a 2025 entry, and we’re excited to try more of it.