Battlefield 6

When you think of FPS games that revolutionized the early 2010s, Battlefield and Call of Duty immediately come to mind. Yet years later, looking at these franchises​ seems like looking at a sad caricature of something that you used to know. BF 2042 was a disaster, and Call of Duty's dive into milking the Black Ops franchise has culminated with BO7 being... I don't even know what to call it other than a yearly subscription where you get the same thing, but with a crazier reskin. Battlefield 6, however, when announced, seemed like it was going for the very logical to the fans, yet a seemingly crazy idea to most current studio executives. Go for what made your IP what it is. Don't try to copy the competition just because their idea is making them tons of revenue. The fans paid you for what made you you. If they want to play Fortnite, they will play Fortnite; don't try to bring another game's success formula and slap your IP on it. That's not how creativity works, and mere copying shouldn't be rewarded. So with that said, when I loaded in during the Beta in August last year, after the whole weekend, all I was left with was a smile like I had when I played Battlefield 3 on my PS3 in 2011. The game was great; it had all the parts that made BF unique. The core gameplay was fun, the vehicles worked well, and the general chaos of the game with your friends in your squad was peak. After the Beta, besides some worries, a whole lot of other people, including myself, walked away quite impressed and, needless to say, happily waiting for the release. 

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Now, past the release and having put some significant time into the game, I can say that while it definitely is a good game, it could have been so much more. Let's start with my main problem, the resource allocation that went into this game. What I think is currently killing this game is the lack of multiplayer content that the players have received since launch. The game released with a campaign that might as well not have been made. It's forgettable, basic, and feels like it was made because of an obligation rather than a desire to tell a good military story. Then there is RedSec, made during a peak of overinflation with battle royale games, Battlefield Studios should have maybe realized that just cause they can, doesn't mean they should. While RedSec is somewhat fun, ultimately, it is just a Warzone copy with a Battlefield skin on it. We thus are left with the actual best part of the game, which is what I, and a lot of other fans, bought the game for. The multiplayer. It's great, it's why everyone loved the Beta. Yet post-launch, it feels like there is not enough content there to get me to come back and play. There are not enough new maps, modes, or anything in rotation that would really keep the player retention, especially in such a competitive market as today's. What there is a lot of is microtransactions and other typical slop that berates live service games. I could even overlook that if they delivered equally on the aspect that I already paid for, rather than getting me to pay them more money for cosmetics or faster leveling.

 

It seems that Battlefield Studios tried to cram a bit of everything, but ultimately spread itself too thin and is now paying the price, given the recent layoffs at the company despite the game still doing phenomenally well profit-wise. Maybe if they had fully invested in the multiplayer mode and used the resources from RedSec and the campaign, the game could have reached its full potential. Right now, it feels a bit too little, too late, and with the current attention span of gamers, you must listen to what the players actually want if you want your game to do well in the long run as a live service.  

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