Battlefield 6 Hands-On Multiplayer Preview – Class Is Back in Session
EA has begun its media blitz for the next major installment of one of its largest shooters. They have just wrapped up a live Battlefield 6 multiplayer showcase, and MP1st was among several other outlets and streamers to get some hands-on time ahead of the showcase.
We managed to try out some of the game’s multiplayer modes, maps, loadouts, and more. Is Battlefield back? We’ve got our initial impressions ready right now, so read on to find out.
Frostbitten Glory
EA made it clear from the start: Battlefield 6 is an all-hands-on-deck revamp of their long-running franchise. Development has been spread out in various capacities to not one, not two, but four teams: Criterion Games, DICE, Motive, and Ripple Effect (formerly known as DICE LA). Each team’s area of expertise is utilized for whichever portion of the game they are suited best for, whether that’s networking knowledge, engine programming, or something else. Collectively, this team is known as Battlefield Studios. It will be interesting to see if this development strategy pays dividends.
The Frostbite engine has been EA’s de facto game engine across essentially all of their titles, and as it had its roots with Battlefield: Bad Company, there was never any doubt that it’d be used for Battlefield 6. Running on the provided i7-14700KF CPU mixed with an RTX 5070 12GB GPU and other suitable hardware, Battlefield 6 ran buttery smooth in 1440p resolution, while also being perhaps the best-looking Battlefield game ever. Every map was highly detailed: we played on Liberation Peak, a mountainous region of Tajikistan, the desert arena that is the Siege of Cairo, a very famous street in the New York setting of Empire State, and finally a trek through Gibraltar’s winding roads in the Iberian Offensive.
It also wouldn’t be a Battlefield game if destruction wasn’t a prominent feature, and Battlefield 6’s new and improved tactical destruction mechanics didn’t disappoint. You can destroy a lot of every map, and in many different ways too. C4 on a stubborn wall works perfectly well, and so does shooting through an electrical panel to get to an enemy hiding behind it. Taking out the floor from beneath a group of enemies is awesome – well, I suppose it sounds awesome, anyway, as such a situation didn’t present itself during our session, however I did at least test out destroying an entire floor, which worked exceedingly well.
Check Out These Modes
We also played through a handful of the modes that will be available at launch. Conquest tasks two teams with capturing and holding multiple control points on the map which will drain the other team’s resources the more points that are held. The first team to lose all their resources loses. Breakthrough features an attacking team, with limited respawns per sector, attempting to hold all control points within a sector before they run out of respawns, while the defending team, with unlimited respawns, must try to stop them. Squad Deathmatch is a classic 4v4v4v4 squad contest to get to a certain kill count first. Finally, Domination pushes you to “play the objective” as you aim to earn your team points by capturing and holding objectives. As today’s event was focused on multiplayer, we did not see any single-player options in our build of Battlefield 6, besides a shooting range option when modifying loadouts. There are also more modes that were not shown today: Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, Rush, and Escalation.
Classes are back in Battlefield 6. After experimenting with Specialists in 2021’s Battlefield 2042, EA has incorporated fan feedback and reintroduced the classic Battlefield classes: Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon, albeit with some tweaks. While you can still pick any weapon no matter which class you choose, each class offers “Signature” buffs which are designed to work in tandem with the primary weapon they typically use. For instance, when the Assault class is equipped with their usual assault rifle, they exhibit a faster transition from sprinting to firing, which can be crucial when you come around the corner only to face a sprinting enemy, as usually whoever can manage to fire off the first shots can often win such matchups. However, no other class will receive this buff if they equip the assault rifle. Thus, playing with the weapon your chosen class is designed to utilize is incentivized.
Signature Options
Each class also has signature gadgets, such as the Engineer’s repair tool, which can be used to repair friendly vehicles as well as to damage those belonging to the enemy. They also have unique active abilities, which allow such actions as the Recon class calling in a UAV to a marked location, which will spot enemies’ whereabouts within that area. The longer a match goes on, the more some passive abilities will also level up, culminating in a signature ability.
There are vehicles aplenty in Battlefield 6. There are quads, transports, attack helicopters, fighter jets, and more. Maps which support vehicles were clearly built with them in mind, such as the Siege of Cairo, encouraging a deadly game of cat and mouse, with fast-moving infantry ducking into and out of random buildings in a spawling desert town. At the same time, the tanks attempt to mow everything down before being taken out by a rocket (or five). With the aforementioned “Hitch a ride” feature, you and at least three of your teammates can tag along so you can all get to the objective more quickly, even if it means some of them have to dangle off the back of the vehicle.
A new traversal system has been introduced in Battlefield 6. Dubbed the kinesthetic combat system, it sports several features that are new to the franchise which can help you keep moving while engaged in combat. This is a good thing, because if you stay still too long in a battlefield, you’re likely to get hit. One of the most easily appreciated features is the ability to move while healing a downed teammate. This came in handy so many times during our time with Battlefield 6, since while it’s always a risk to revive a teammate, there is now a possibility to lessen that risk by moving into a more secure spot. Mounting weapons on cover can help anyone, but especially the support class with its large machine gun. Peek and leaning around corners will help to improve your odds when going down a blind alley or around a staircase. “Hitch a ride” allows for more players to “ride” on a vehicle transport by simply hanging on their back, which at first seemed hilarious but quickly proved useful as a legitimate way to travel when the only other option would be on foot. Combat rolls help to avoid fall damage, and even enemy fire if you’re lucky. New recoil feedback is also implemented in an effort to teach players how to minimize its effects. All of this adds up to a Battlefield that feels as good as it looks.
There is seemingly no area of Battlefield which was left untouched by the dev teams. Maps now feature something called combat zones, which alter the map’s layout depending on the game mode being played. An example given is the Siege of Cairo: its Conquest mode version would include the same section of the map which is used in Team Deathmatch, but how destruction is utilized, object placement, and other considerations are made when re-using the map in other modes. So, each map offers variety to switch things up when moving modes.
Immense Power
Last but not least, EA briefly showcased improvements to its Portal application. We saw an editor that looked a bit like a typical game development IDE, and were told that it features a spatial editor, to precisely move objects within a map, as well as new custom options and AI scripting, which let you control enemy NPCs. Some examples of custom creations shown involved flying tanks, crazy floating architecture, and even what looked like a platforming challenge to not fall off a supremely-high concrete structure, in the same vein as hilarious co-op game Chained Together. EA ended their segment on Portal by saying “Create, Share, and Play.” I was immediately reminded of Media Molecule’s incredible LittleBigPlanet series, and their slogan of “Play, Create, Share,” and just how powerful those tools were – with the way EA described Portal, it seems they are aiming to support an entire ecosystem of custom creations. One key way they are doing so is that, provided certain parameters are met, even playing custom levels can contribute to your overall player progression. This is not too common to see in games, because usually custom modes turn off progression. But limiting the progression to only levels which conform to a certain set of settings helps to ensure we don’t end up with a ton of levels that exist only to earn you XP, which is definitely a risk with any user generated content.
The many teams working on Battlefield 6 seem to be taking fan feedback heavily into consideration. From the handful of hours we logged, it does feel like the series is moving in a good direction; one that is true to the origins of Battlefield, but also one that includes a number of improvements in traversal, gunplay, and options.
Get ready for Battlefield 6’s launch on October 10, 2025 on Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
For info on the open beta kicking off in August and the different editions, check out our breakdown.
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