Electronic Arts has been trying to sell more Battlefield games for over 20 years now. Battlefield launched in 2002 as “Battlefield 1942′ for PC and Mac. Battlefield’s best selling games are Battlefield 1 at 25 Million units, Battlefield 3 at 17 Million units, and Battlefield 4 at 14 Million units. As a franchise, Battlefield only sold 88 Million units in its lifetime. While, their competitor – Call of Duty’s headcount far exceeds 400 Million units/downloads.

After Vince Zampella started Respawn Entertainment in April 12, 2010 – Electronic Arts started laying the groundwork on acquiring Respawn Entertainment. On December 1, 2017 – Electronic Arts completed the acquisition in a cash and equity deal. In 2009, after a few months of completing Modern Warfare 2, Vince Zampella and Jason West were fired by Activision, denying that they were to pay $36 million in bonuses and royalties. What followed was a lawsuit that resulted in them getting $42 million and an undisclosed settlement. During this period, Vince’s leadership shipped TitanFall and TitanFall 2. After the EA acquisition, Respawn released Apex Legends, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. In January 2020, Vince Zampella was tasked to lead DICE. In the next few years, Electronic Arts brought other teams into the fold: D.I.C.E., Criterion, Ripple Effect, and Motive to form “Battlefield Studios.” After the commercial failures of Battlefield V, and Battlefield 2042 – Electronic Arts was keen on making the new Battlefield title the best game they’ve done since the franchise started. Likewise the Battlefield 6 Reveal Trailer, the Battlefield 6 Multiplayer Reveal, and the two beta weekends were met with rousing success. Even the risky decision to launch “Battlefield Labs,” which is their “beta” program where they distribute alpha-build gameplay to test bugs, glitches, and other issues. It was also meant to test the servers at the same time.

Battlefield 6 foregoes previous generation consoles, and solely focuses on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S / X, and PC. With this “Hands On,” I played on August 9, through August 10, 2025. Then, the second weekend – August 14, through August 17, 2025. This “Hands On” is going to focus on my gameplay on PlayStation 5.

I want to preface this “Hands On,” I’ve played Battlefield for a long time. I started around Bad Company. I have been playing Call of Duty since Call of Duty 2, and Call of Duty 3 before it’s even out. Call of Duty 4 is when I started to go deep into the franchise. I’ve played a little bit of Medal of Honor, and my favorite Medal of Honor title is Frontlines. It was obviously inspired by Goldeneye. It shows in the controls. I am going to come at this “Hands On” with this expertise. More than that, I will assume that you are a casual. I will assume that you are just into First Person Shooters, and that you are tired of Call of Duty. I will point out why in this preview.

Gameplay

For the most part, Battlefield 6 plays mostly like the previous entries in the Battlefield franchise. Battlefield 6 thrusts you into a war-torn Middle Eastern location. You are an infantry soldier in the frontline. In typical Battlefield fashion, you have 5 classes to choose from. Each has a special “trait” in combat. For example, if you select recon – you are basically a sniper. Your “trait” is to “spot” enemies with your sniper rifle. If you are “Engineer” you repair vehicles. Battlefield 6 blends a few Battlefield games into one. Most will go to Battlefield 3 and/or 4. Battlefield 6 is a “Modern Warfare” game. (Pun intended for effect.) Zampella is at the helm of this project, so that “Call of Duty” touch is there. The gameplay feels familiar. It’s a generic first person shooter, yeah, but it is very much “Battlefield,” but I can’t ignore the inspiration, the little details that Battlefield 6 has, that makes it seem like they are trying to attract Call of Duty players to Battlefield 6.

So, naturally, Battlefield 6 is competing against Call of Duty, and it shows. Most of the beta was comprised of small maps, small teams. There’s a controversy around this, because most Battlefield games are big maps, big teams – the best way to describe this from Call of Duty’s perspective is a bunch of modes that are similar to Ground War. In the beta, we had several match types that emulate Ground War. In a match of Ground War, typically is 32 vs 32. The biggest match in Battlefield is typically 64 players, or 64 vs 64. I even wrote an article about 128 Players not being overkill. This was long before Fortnite was even a thing. Most consoles couldn’t handle 128 Players until PlayStation 4/Xbox One was on the market. Because that many players carries a lot of information, which would cause lag.

I would argue that most Call of Duty fans are looking for a Battlefield type of game. Oh yeah. Yeah. Battlefield 6 is that game at the moment. It blends the ideas of Call of Duty, and ideas of Battlefield. Most Call of Duty fans are tired of the old 16 vs 16 match type. So, Battle Royales and multiplayer need to move beyond the 16 vs 16, 32 vs 32, and even the 64 vs 64 matchtypes. Most Battle Royale games are capped at 120 players. I argue that we need to break this ceiling, and bring more chaos to gameplay. I had a lot of fun with the Battlefield 6 Beta. And you will notice why in some of the videos that I have embedded in this article. They are my highlights of the beta. Over the course of this article, I’ll explain the little details that makes Battlefield 6 the perfect blueprint.

Controls

I mentioned that Battlefield 6 blends ideas from Call of Duty, and some ideas from Battlefield. This is one of those areas where Battlefield Studios finetuned Battlefield 6 to emulate Call of Duty. Now, granted, they did this with Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4. However, Battlefield 3 had a few issues with the game itself when it was in beta, and then at launch. My opinion with Battlefield 3, is it’s a good game, yes, but I would say there are some issues that I have with it. Controls felt a little bit sluggish, a little bit janky at times. Battlefield 4 was a more polished version of Battlefield 3, it felt like D.I.C.E. learned a lot from Battlefield 3, and applied it. With Battlefield 6, this polish is moved up a bit. This is evident with the movement, and the Aim Down Sight (ADS) controls, feels, and implementation.

They made it smoother when it came to running, and then transitioning that movement into action “A” to “B.” So, if I am running, and I want to ADS, the animation is responsive. Now, if I saw something from a distance, and I want to hide from that player, I can transition from standing, to crouching, and then ultimately to leaning on your back – as if I was dead. All of that is responsive, no clunkyness, no weirdness. Nothing. Black Ops 6 has a few issues in this department, and I said as much in the Black Ops 6 Beta Hands On.

Graphics

All the footage that I captured during the beta is 100% from my PlayStation 5 at 4k raw. It takes me an hour to upload the gameplay because PlayStation 5 records gameplay at 4k 60fps, and the files are in WEBM (a variation of WEBP) which results in filesizes up to 20 GB for just ONE HOUR. YouTube “compresses” this from their end. During the compression process, YouTube upscales them to the various video resolutions. 4k included. Why am I saying this? Because Battlefield 6 is one of the best looking first person shooters that I’ve played in a while. The frostbite engine itself is being pushed to its ABSOLUTE limit. At one point, it crashed one of my matches. And that was the only time that Battlefield 6 crashed in my game time. Xbox Series and PC players had this worse. They were crashing a lot.

The game looks similar to most first person shooters on the market, but I think that Battlefield Studios wanted Battlefield 6 to look, and feel like a Call of Duty game. It’s not just Vince Zampella on the project, but the developers themselves put their touch to the project, and you can see in the gameplay that I have posted here. At one point, Battlefield 6’s tanker battles look entirely different than most first person shooters. In Battlefield 6, you can have two tanks in the same area, and they’d be battling for supremacy. It feels like Battlefield 6 is aiming to differentiate from all the other shooters while trying to attract Call of Duty fans.

Online Connectivity

For the most part, the online connectivity is smooth sailing. I think that Battlefield Studios made a great decision by foregoing the idea of porting Battlefield 6 to previous generation consoles like PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Battlefield Studios’ decision to focus on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S / X, and PC is better, because I’ve seen how previous consoles hold back the current consoles. As I mentioned before, Battlefield 3 had a few framerate issues because there was a lot of players on the map which feeds information between consoles and the servers. Battlefield 4 had a similar issue, but was mitigated by a more powerful console like PlayStation 4.

Music & Sound

The music is good, but it only plays during menus, and other User Interface menus like picking the spawn point in which you spawn from once upon dying. When you bleed out, the music also plays. I don’t think it plays during gameplay, and if it does, it’s kinda silent. However, sound design is the highlight of Battlefield 6. Between graphics and sound, they have the same quality impact. Beautiful graphics, and beautiful sound(s). For example, when you’re in the tank, it feels like you’re inside that tank. Every shot, every rocket feels impactful both from the “Main Gun” and the gun turret – which, by the way – are both controllable. You and a player in the tank can both use the main gun, and the gun turret. Each cockpit has a particular point of view and both control independently of each other. Each point of view has a “feeling” because of the sound.

Misc Feedback

Obviously, because of the PlayStation 5’s controller, you’re also getting impact from the haptic feedback. Every shot, every boom, every levelution can be felt from the haptics. You can also feel like you’re in a military match because the on-board microphone talks at you in addition to the voices on the game itself.

Replay Value

The replay value is dependent on what you are feeling that moment. Do you want to be an Assault player? Do you want to be a Recon player? Do you want to get into a tank? Is your team in sync with you? Are you ballsy enough to sneak into a tank and help out the domination flag and end the game? Do you want to be a sniper sniping from 20 Meters away? Battlefield’s biggest strength is from the freedom to do whatever you want in the game. That is the only difference between Battlefield games and Call of Duty games. Since Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4, Call of Duty hasn’t figured out a way to open up the gameplay loop. Battlefield’s greatest strength besides the freedom the game provides, it also offers destructible environments. Levelution has been a feature since Battlefield: Bad Company. You can’t technically camp in Battlefield. You can, but then they have a strategy to get you off your “high horse.” That strategy is called levelution. You can destroy just about any object in Battlefield games. Although, and this is what the developers said; not all buildings or object is “levelution-friendly” as in, you won’t be able to destroy all buildings – which is a game design choice, not a technical issue. It still gives you that complete freedom to do whatever you want on that map.

CarlosX360’s Battlefield 6 Gameplay Playlist

In Conclusion

The greatest strength that a Battlefield game has is the great freedom players has in the sandbox game of a Battlefield game. You can be an Assault player, a Recon player, a Medic, or go into a tank. Battlefield 6 is a beautiful looking game, and a beautiful sounding game. With that beautiful looking game, you can level buildings in an effort to expose campers. Battlefield 6 encourages collaboration across all types of players, if you are a medic, you are encouraged to revive fallen players. If you are an Engineer, you are encouraged to repair vehicles including tanks. If you are a Recon player, you are encouraged to “spot” enemies for others to eliminate. You are encouraged to resupply players with ammo as a Support class.

You are encouraged to use vehicles to your advantage. You can get into an aircraft, you can get into a jeep, you can get into a Main Battle Tank. You can either be the driver and control the main gun. Or you can control the turret gun. Some of these vehicles can cause levelutions. This year, Battlefield fans have a great experience ahead of them.

Battlefield 6 is scheduled to be released for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S / X, and PC on October 10, 2025.