Ahead of Battlefield 6's second season launching later this week, I hopped into a Zoom call with producer Phil Girette and associate producer Kit Eklof to talk about all the new changes and additions coming to the blockbuster. As expected, there was a lot of ground to cover, and only 15 minutes to do it.
So I quickly started exploring the things that really matter to me as a player: the season one content rollout, season two delays, and what we can expect in terms of maps and overall map size going forward.
“We see that feedback and hear it very loudly,” Girette tells me. “And we're really happy that people just, you know, want more of the things that we can provide. After the extension of season one and after the launch, which went pretty smoothly by Battlefield standards, we decided that season two needed a little more time. I think the extension was one of the main factors where people now feel like, where's the new stuff? So if we had people playing the new stuff already, hopefully it would be a little bit better.”
The aim is to keep the seasons tight and deliver on time in the future, with a solid three-month structure along with three main 'beats'. Neither Girette nor Eklof confirmed whether subsequent seasons would feature two or three maps by default, but noted that each season would include “hardware, vehicles, weapons and game additions”, which for season two include the VL-7 gas limited mode along with Night and Operations.
“And what we're doing on top of that, as we see in season two, is more maps and bigger maps. We have to make sure the maps maintain the quality and match the expectations of what the players want,” explains Girette. “We're already testing the Golmud Railway early on Labs now, so that's a step in the right direction. And then more maps, of course, is something we'll be looking into. But maps are also one of the most time-consuming things that we're building. We're going to need a little more time.”
“But maps are also one of the most time-consuming things we build. We're going to need a little more time.”
On the subject of maps, we also discussed the new battlefield that comes with the launch of season two, Contaminated. It's a medium-sized map with plenty of verticality, and honestly, it's now one of my favorites in the entire game. “Verticality is one of the things we always think about when it comes to maps,” Girette tells me. “One of the main goals of Contaminated was, 'We're crossing the globe here, we're in Europe now, Germany is a big member of NATO, of course.' get onto future maps too.”
In addition to the new map, each season so far has introduced new limited-time gameplay mechanics. For season two, this will initially be the VL-7 gas followed by total darkness at Hagental Base, the second map in season two to be released at a later date. “So what we wanted to do with VL-7 is to do more maps, more weapons, more vehicles and so on, is just to have a different take on the gameplay features as well,” says Girette. “So we have a different spin on that with season two. We want everyone to check it out and hopefully like it, but if there are players who just say it's not my cup of tea, then you can just play the map in the same modes without gas.”
Season two also introduces the new VCR, which I played with quite a bit during the Conanimated preview. Eklof, a hardware producer on Season 2, had some interesting insights into how the team goes about balancing new weapons. “There's a lot of steps. When we have new hardware, we want to make them efficient at the beginning, otherwise it's better not to do them at all, right? So I think we're fine with something that feels a bit impactful, and then we can tweak it, scale it down a bit depending on what data we see and the feedback we have from the players as well.”
Balancing weapons is a multi-step process, Eklof tells me. “We're doing internal testing, and we get a sense of people working on the team – whatever they're working on currently – there's a whole bunch of people giving feedback. Everyone's getting involved even if they're working on something completely different. That's the first step. Then we look at the data and then we send it out to Labs, and that's where we want the final player feedback that's going to be live. And that's where we get the bulk of the data. That's actually when we can get it perfect. Usually it's not perfect when it goes out.
In addition to new weapons, season two introduces some much-needed weapon balances and recoil adjustments. I was keen to see if the team was aware of some of the community complaints about weapons feeling too similar, especially with players using the same loadout on all weapons as they are considered meta. “I can't confirm any specific changes going forward,” Eklof says, “but we're definitely looking at SMGs and assault rifles. How fast some of them are, how fast the time-to-kill is on some of them. Are they serving their purpose? Are they accurate relative to each other at distances where you want to see the kill happen most reliably?”
SMGs are pretty powerful at the moment, even a bit more than they should be. We are looking into it. And I think the identity, that they can all be specified, that they feel the same, that's something we need to pay more attention to. We will always work on this, because weapons are bread and butter.”
Season two of Battlefield 6 launches on February 17 on all platforms.
Battlefield 6
4.0/5
- Released
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10 October 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, In-App Purchases, User Interaction
- Developer
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Battlefield Studios
