After 4 hours with Battlefield 6, I think Battlefield is really back this time

Four hours of Battlefield 6 multiplayer made one thing extremely clear: Battlefield was perfect just the way it was.

I'm no Battlefield 2042 hater—in fact, I maintain it got really good—but it proved that the Battlefield formula doesn't infinitely scale. Double the players was not automatically better, nor was its faux-class system that emphasized flashy gadgets over teamplay. It was a hard-learned lesson that left Battlefield's ego badly bruised, and yet, those sunken expectations are setting the stage nicely for Battlefield 6.

At any other time, Battlefield 6's pitch of modern military soldiers, classic modes, 64-player lobbies, and four classes would come off as overly ordinary, but I just checked my calendar, and it's been 12 years since Battlefield has been this ordinary.

It's been nothing but curveballs and identity crises from this series for so long that the expected has become the unexpected. Battlefield 6 is a fastball straight over the plate, and it is good.

The highest praise I can heap on my short time with BF6 is how often it gave me flashbacks to Bad Company 2. We played a map called Liberation Peak (one of nine launch maps) that feels like a love letter to Port Valdez with its fully destructible buildings, fluctuating elevation, and oblong shape. Holding a maximum of 64 players on its Conquest configuration, it has that magical goldilocks quality where vehicles have space, snipers have nooks, and infantry have options.

In one match, I had an "only in Battlefield" moment where a 2-minute firefight with a sniper ended with watching him get knifed from behind. Later, I ran up to a squadmate to revive them with defib paddles, only to accidentally zap and kill a bad guy laying next to him.

Later on, I swapped to an engineer kit that was on the ground and ended up the permanent gunner in a tank, nursing its treads back from the brink a dozen times. Four hours passed in the blink of an eye. I could've Conquested all day.

Battlefield 6's biggest changes are felt in impactful details:

• Battlefield Studios (but come on, it was probably DICE) has slowed movement back down to match the map size, and yes, the tac sprint is straight up gone
• Vaults and climbs happen instantaneously, and you can sprint while crouched
• I could be wrong, but bullets seem to move faster at close range, as if guns are hitscan up to a certain distance (this is how CoD has done it for a while now)
• You can drag squadmates out of danger as you revive them
• Guns have tons of attachments, but they're limited by a pool of "attachment points"
• Special class abilities are unlocked throughout the match, sort of like a CoD scorestreak without the streak: The Medic one turned me into a walking resupply box for a while

I'd have to play a lot more to be sure, but that possible ballistics boost made close-quarters gunfights feel instant and consistent—I will not miss having to slightly lead shots on a guy 15 feet away. I played a lot of Medic and I'm happy to report it's still a job for reckless sickos. Interestingly, Medics have two ways to revive: the drag-and-heal move or defibrillators. I dig it because whipping out the paddles is a much quicker revive, but sometimes not as smart as dragging the body around a corner first.

A couple of gripes: I didn't get to try that closed weapons mode that restricts weapons to their designated class, as god intended. Open weapons aren't a dealbreaker for me, but Battlefield 6 is doing nothing to convince me its loadout free-for-all is better than the old ways. It's strange that BF6 enables weapon freedom while also discouraging it through special passive abilities (medics don't have a movement penalty with LMGs, for instance).

We also had our turn on Team Deathmatch and Domination, both modes made in Call of Duty's image and played on tiny versions of Conquest maps. These were super boring, and I thought it was weird that BF Studios put any emphasis on them, especially considering we didn't get to play Rush or Escalation, a new mode they described as a Conquest variant with more flags to start.

In fact, this whole showing has ended up narrower than I expected. Portal was also MIA from the open beta build, and EA isn't even ready to fully acknowledge the whole battle royale thing. I'm happy to wait on those, because so far, Battlefield 6 is hitting the bullseye where it matters most.