Battlefield 6 has already been shown to be massively popular and reaches over 300,000 simultaneous players when its early access open beta started this week. Feedback across the line also seems quite solid: it is definitely a return to the form of the series and feels much like the older and endlessly more beloved posts. Everything goes swimming. Well, except for a big problem.
The maps are so small.
I'm not sure if this is a problem with just the open beta, or an indication of a broader concern that I have had with the whole game since I took it for a test run last week. Battlefield leans hard into his Call of Duty-Killer identity this time and is the best positioned as it has ever been to deal with their old rival, even if it means to jeopardize what it means to be “battlefield” in the first place.
Infantry feels like focus and conspiracy theories for the road
Everything we have seen so far has been strongly infantry focus. The maps we have had a chance to play are simply too small for vehicles to make the epic, sweeping effect they used to in the older games. It is quite ironic that I complain about the size of the maps in BF6, when 2042 was famous had playgrounds that were far too big. Although these maps were far too massive, at least the conquest situation actually felt like battlefields. This feels more like Call of Duty's Ground War with extra destruction.
There are a few things to deal with here: It is very possible that we will see bigger maps when the entire game is released in October. It is even possible that these maps, liberation stops and the siege of Cairo are actually less than we have been led to believing. The open beta may only do what it is supposed to do: test the servers, performance and optimization of having 64 players repeatedly blast each other in the end.
Perhaps the Battlefield 6 has smaller maps due to possible destruction levels. Is it possible that dice struggled to handle performance on a larger scale and had to call the size of the maps back to help? This is just speculation on my part, but the game goes extremely well on both consoles and PC. I have got a little that they may have sacrificed part of the massive battlefield scale to make sure the game performs its best and therefore appeals to as many players as possible.
Oh, I love conspiracy theories. However, time will appear.
Small maps have a big impact on how the game feels
The smaller maps do everything fast in a way that I have never really associated with the battlefield. This series has always been about patience, strategy and a slightly slower pace. In BF6, everyone is always on top of you, and the maps are strangely funnel -shaped, which drives everyone along with little consideration of some form of flanking or broader strategy between troops.
I played a round of liberation stop on breakthrough and found the perfect place for my tank. I was pressed straight up to the edge of the map with a clear line of sight down a narrow street. The entire enemy team had to cross the street to reach the final goal in the sector. I was covered by a large mountain, stones, trees and had two engineers who repaired me to make sure someone who could avoid my cannon or machine gun to get an RPG to do some damage.
It was impossible for enemy team to approach. They tried to smoke the road, but I would just push blindly into the fog and mark them for my team. I felt a little sorry for them. They couldn't flank me. No air support. Nothing. Just immediate death. I reached up over 50 kills in that game, one of my highest death games so far.
This type of thing does not happen on larger maps, or at least it happens much less. If the world was a little more open, the enemy team could have made an attempt to flank or approach from another angle. What you end up with in Battlefield 6, on these currently available maps, is a very forced commitment with some room for experiments. It does not know anything like Battlefield at all, and despite all my previous conspiracy theories, I really hope that we will see some major maps at launch.
