Battlefield 6 players complain that its new map lets snipers and anti-aircraft guns kill respawning players

Battlefield 6 players have reacted negatively to the game’s new map, which was added on Tuesday to mark the start of Season 1.

Blackwell Fields is described by the game’s developer as “an ominous large-scale All-Out-Warfare map set in Southern California with military facilities and scattered homesteads under siege, all under the backdrop of a breathtaking burning horizon”.

Since its release, however, many players have been complaining about exploits that make spawn kills – being killed again by opponents immediately after respawning – far too common.

One video on the Battlefield Reddit page states that players can be killed almost immediately if they spawn into a jet, because the opponent’s base can use their anti-aircraft guns to lock onto it as it’s taking off and shoot it out of the sky right away.

Another user noted that this isn’t limited to jets, because players who choose to fly a helicopter can also be shot down in their own base by the anti-aircraft guns from an enemy base.

“When you spawn in your jet you are already getting tagged by lasers, and if you manage to fly you can only fly about 100m outside of the map,” user OdahP added. “It’s insane. I don’t understand why they wanna implement jets but then make the maps and flyable area so small that you can’t even traverse or evade targets.”

Players who choose not to spawn into vehicles are reporting problems of their own, with some complaining that the wide open nature of the map means snipers often have a clean line of sight on distant spawn locations.

“I can’t count the amount of times I spawn on this map and instantly have direct vision of the enemies’ capturing points,” CategoryStrict8462 wrote. “You get shot at from every angle on this map, there’s never a break. People can just spawn and start shooting you straight away.

“I just played a breakthrough on defence where I was legit 0/5 from spawning in my HQ before I had a chance to move once,” Xgunter added. “I am not exaggerating, I was literally dead before spawning.”

Another common argument being made is that the new map in Battlefield REDSEC, the separate free-to-play Battle Royale game also released on Tuesday, is generally considered to be a very good map, something that has annoyed some players who feel others are getting a better free experience than the one they paid for.

“Free-to-play crowd is getting a giant map with boats, the paying crowd gets Blackwell Fields”, one Reddit post with more than 5,000 likes wrote.

Battlefield 6‘s first season launched on Tuesday, promising three waves of free content between October and December. As well as the Blackwell Fields map, the first wave Rogue Ops also added a Strikepoint mode and a new vehicle (APC Traverser Mark 2), carbine (SOR-300C), sidearm (GGH-22), sniper rifle (Mini Fix) and attachments (Rail Cover and LPVO), among other additions.

This will be followed by California Resistance on November 18, which adds a new Eastwood map, a limited time Sabotage mode, a new shotgun, new sidearm and new attachment, and a new ‘battle pickups’ feature. Finally, Winter Offensive will come on December 9, bringing with it a limited time event called Ice Lock, along with a limited time Ice Lock Empire State map, an Ice Climbing Axe melee weapon, and more.

VGC’s Battlefield 6 review praised its “excellent multiplayer”, saying it made it for a “boilerplate single-player effort”.

“Battlefield 6 is exactly what the fans wanted, and what this game needed to be,” we wrote. “The single player is fine, if largely tertiary, but the multiplayer shines. Extremely fun to play, rewarding and full of excellent maps and modes, this is the Battlefield multiplayer suite that will be bring those lost by 2042 back into the fold.”