Battlefield 6 Has Brought Absolute Cinema Back to Multiplayer

Capturing the constituent is the backbone of galore multiplayer games, and it’s often the astir breathtaking infinitesimal of a match. It’s erstwhile Zarya drops a Graviton Surge that glues the full force squad together, acceptable to beryllium obliterated by D.Va’s Self-Destruct. Or erstwhile your Super gauge yet fills and you’re capable to unleash your Guardian’s point-clearing powers. Or erstwhile you unlock the cleanable Killstreak that rains down a warehouse-worth of munitions, obliterating the absorption seconds earlier they tin seizure the zone.

But nary 1 does seizure points similar Battlefield.

I precocious played a Conquest lucifer of Battlefield 6 that saw a constituent connected Operation Firestorm gradually attacked and seized implicit a mates of minutes. At archetypal it was conscionable on-foot soldiers, charging successful and popping fume to conceal their assault. Then the tanks turned up. Cannons roared, chunks of masonry scattered. Sparks fizzed arsenic engineers patched up armour. And then, similar immoderate benignant of finale fireworks, a pitchy screamed overhead, its deployed payload securing the nonsubjective from the last enemies who were holding out.

As this was happening, the internet’s favourite Scorsese meme came to mind. “Absolute Cinema.”

Battlefield’s large-scale, combined arms, destructive multiplayer is dissimilar thing else. “Cinematic” is simply a prime that typically feels antithetical to multiplayer shooters, which are mostly required to beryllium much cleanable and precise. Clear sightlines. Hard counters. Precision-engineered, three-lane maps. Intense competition. There’s nary country for spectacle, which is reserved for single-player campaigns. Not successful Battlefield, though. To play Battlefield 6 is to beryllium an histrion successful a warfare movie. And what a feeling that is, particularly aft years of sweaty conflict royales and esport tactical shooters ruling the charts portion prior, lesser accomplished Battlefield games languished connected the sidelines.

Battlefield 6's vehicles are a captious portion of creating its warfare movie-like feel. | Image credit: EA / Battlefield Studios

Battle royale has reigned ultimate for astir a decennary now, and it’s not hard to spot wherefore the fight-to-the-last-player format has endured. Sure, the never-ending churn of marque crossovers that feeds Fortnite and Warzone plays much than a tiny portion successful keeping the masses entertained, but it’s undeniable that each lucifer has the imaginable to archer a communicative of nail-biting survival. The one-life-only, you-versus-everyone quality of conflict royale makes it an inherently tense experience, a trait the genre shares with the extraction shooter’s breakout successes – the unit that builds crossed a lucifer of Hunt: Showdown oregon Escape from Tarkov is unrivaled.

That benignant of stressful, hyper-competitive plan is besides the cardinal substance of Counter-Strike, the most-played crippled connected Steam, and Valorant, Riot’s incredibly fashionable tactical shooter. Their tightly designed maps, painstakingly calibrated balance, and high-stakes, single-life matches are the ingredients for exhilarating integer sport. And portion athletics tin so archer stories – the epic highs and lows of precocious schoolhouse football, to notation different meme – there’s a important quality betwixt those stories of clutch victories and “cinema”.

Battlefield 6 is the implicit other of games similar Valorant and Fortnite. While it surely has rules and parameters, Battlefield is arsenic dedicated to immersion. Where Counter-Strike’s maps are intelligibly artificial constructs designed to beforehand the astir competitory play, Battlefield aims to vessel you disconnected to war… or, much accurately, a warfare movie set. Each map’s pathways whitethorn person been laid retired by a level decorator with multiplayer engagements successful mind, but they consciousness similar slices of crumbling struggle zones alternatively than athletics arenas.

Those maps, and the objectives wrong them, make moments of big, loud, messy drama. Yes, that play whitethorn often beryllium rooted successful clutch victories akin to what we spot successful the large esports games, but they’re made from the components of explosive enactment movies alternatively than streamer skirmishes. Battlefield’s melodramatic due to the fact that a vessel is unloading shells into the gathering you’re trying to hold, and the walls are creaking and the full happening is astir to collapse, but your squad’s medic has yet arrived to resuscitate a adjacent engineer, who’s capable to occurrence disconnected their RPG conscionable successful clip to destruct that vessel and prevention america all. That benignant of operation conscionable doesn’t beryllium successful Counter-Strike oregon adjacent Fortnite, contempt the latter’s effort to propulsion everything successful beingness onto its deadly island.

The caller drag-and-revive mechanic creates heroic moments. | Image credit: EA / Battlefield Studios

Battlefield’s plan allows emergent stories similar these to hap successful each match, and each clip it feels similar a country from Black Hawk Down. The squad and people systems lone reenforce that. You’re each characters successful a warfare movie, each doing their part. Laying down covering fire. Repairing a vessel you’re huddled behind. Scoring a headshot connected the sniper that’s got your radical pinned down. The caller drag-and-revive mechanic is possibly the champion illustration of this. Having my breached assemblage pulled to safety, bullets striking the crushed astir my legs and explosions ringing successful my ears, is 1 of the astir heroic, brothers-in-arms things I’ve ever experienced successful a game.

Many of the competitive-focused shooters that predominate the charts are seemingly governed by “the meta” – viral builds and strategies that endanger to marque each lucifer consciousness the same. It’s a improvement that truly cements them arsenic online video games alternatively than, say, counter-terrorism simulators oregon superhero showdowns, and successful crook further divorces them from Battlefield’s consciousness of messy spectacle. And portion we each cognize that the meta volition yet infest Battlefield 6 successful 1 mode oregon another, it tin ne'er genuinely power Battlefield, due to the fact that its top spot is those emergent, cinematic moments, not its limb stats oregon KDA ratios. No wonderment “only-in-Battlefield” moments person been a halfway portion of the series’ selling for galore years now.

Back successful the summer, I wondered if Battlefield 6 was playing it excessively safe. As amusive arsenic its preview objection was, I had concerns that EA wasn’t pushing the bid successful immoderate absorbing caller directions. And portion it’s existent that the last merchandise is the precise explanation of classical Battlefield, and often feels similar a crippled I’ve played for hundreds of hours before, I’m enjoying it much than I person immoderate different PvP multiplayer crippled successful years. In galore respects, that’s simply because, arsenic our glowing multiplayer reappraisal explains, Battlefield 6 is fantastically layered and smartly designed. But much than that, it’s those emergent stories. Those player-created, warfare movie-like sequences that simply don’t hap successful immoderate different game.

The run attempts to recreate the strength of Saving Private Ryan's D-Day landings, but fails to marque it arsenic breathtaking arsenic a multiplayer scramble. | Image credit: EA / Battlefield Studios

It’s a shame nary of that tin beryllium recovered successful the single-player. Our run reappraisal rather rightly criticised it for not conscionable being incredibly dull, but besides for making adjacent to nary usage of Battlefield’s iconic components. There’s nary absorbing squad dynamics, constricted usage of vehicles, and its demolition is each excessively often scripted alternatively than improvised. It doesn’t consciousness thing similar Battlefield. Rather, its linear ngo plan makes it each excessively wide that it’s utilizing Call of Duty arsenic a blueprint.

But wherefore Call of Duty? Put the multiplayer suites of these series’ side-by-side and it’s wide they person astir thing successful communal beyond their subject theming. While there’s agelong been a rivalry betwixt the 2 franchises, it's due to the fact that they’re some warring for antithetic visions of the post-Medal of Honor FPS, alternatively than scrapping implicit the aforesaid idea. And truthful you’d deliberation the aforesaid would use to the campaign, that Battlefield’s single-player would beryllium a distinctly antithetic beast to Call of Duty. But they’re not. They’re the aforesaid tightly-controlled, linear shooters. Well, astir the same. Call of Duty is, much often than not, beauteous bully astatine this benignant of thing. Battlefield… little so.

In an alternate timeline, things whitethorn person been different. Back successful 2022, EA established Ridgeline Games to make Battlefield 6’s campaign. The workplace was led by Marcus Lehto, 1 of the co-creators of Halo. With that history, you tin spot however Battlefield would person benefitted from his guidance. Halo’s campaigns are, afterall, built connected a bedrock of wide unfastened levels that let astute usage of infantry and vehicles – immoderate of Battlefield’s captious gathering blocks. But the workplace was struck by manufacture restructuring woes and shuttered successful 2024, leaving Criterion Games and Ripple Effect Studios seemingly scrambling to portion thing unneurotic successful clip for Battlefield 6’s 2025 release.

The hollow results near maine wondering however Battlefield could person captured the cinema of its multiplayer without resorting to copying Infinity Ward’s homework. Considering its trademark components, Battlefield seems similar an perfect spot to recapture the ideas of EA’s own, long-abandoned Mercenaries. With their sandbox unfastened worlds, vehicles, artillery, and wholly destructible buildings, Mercenaries seems an perfect template for what a modern Battlefield run could look like. But I’d instrumentality thing that really reflects the series’ long-established identity. We tin lone anticipation that the improvement pipeline for Battlefield 7 is little troubled and much ambitious.

But for now, we person Battlefield 6 and its joyously destructive, noisy multiplayer. The crippled wherever each nonsubjective is the signifier for a warfare movie, packed with explosions, smoke, sparks, and the rattle of a twelve rifles. Where jeeps screech astir the country carrying much-needed reinforcements, and jets scramble to driblet tide-turning payloads. Battlefield is astir decidedly back, and it’s implicit cinema.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.