EA and DICE have been going about building anticipating for the next Battlefield in some fairly unusual ways. The game’s title has yet to be officially announced, and no reveal – of any kind – has taken place, yet.
The people making the highly-anticipated shooter instead decided to run an invite-only testing environment – dubbed Battlefield Labs – and have that, well, do the talking. It’s clear DICE and co wanted to get the people who care most about Battlefield involved as early as possible, because it’s them who’d be more than happy to generate that word of mouth organically.
Of course, you have to keep in mind that those same people are more than happy to tell you when there’s something they don’t like, too – and that’s a problem when what that is seems integral to the vision of the game.
If you’ve not been paying attention to any of the recent (and many) Battlefield 6 leaks, the short version is that the game looks good! The art style is grounded, depicting gritty combat in environments where you expect it to take place. There’s a big emphasis on destruction, combined arms gameplay, and a focus on bringing back the type of squad combat Battlefield 2042 abandoned in its attempt at Apex Legend-ifying the series.
Crucial to the way a Battlefield game works is class co-dependency. In other words, each class is meant to perform a certain role, and it’s only allowed to use certain weapons. It would be even better if each also had a distinct look and an easy-to-spot silhouette. Those inherent limitations give Battlefield’s multiplayer its character, but Battlefield 6 is chipping away at – at least – some of that.
DICE first revealed its intentions to alter the way classes work in the next game nearly two months ago, when it first allowed Battlefield Labs participants to test out a version of the game where any player could use any weapon, regardless of their class.
DICE’s language at the time was a little soft; seemingly intended to massage what the developer knew would be an incredibly controversial change. The studio’s argument was that it’s building in-game systems to incentivise players to stick to their chosen class’ recommended weapon type – so called Signature Weapon – and that players would need to play with those systems implemented first before they pass judgement on the direction things are going.
As it happens, that conversation started with a blog post that had a telling “part one” at the end of its title, which signaled that things could change. The second part of that blog post has since gone up, confirming that DICE is sticking to its guns on this one.
The biggest reveal in the post is that each class in Battlefield 6 will have two Training Paths, effectively branching roles with passives that enhance your character. Each path is structured into three levels that you progress through in the match itself, similar to Battlefield 4‘s Field Upgrades.
You get to immediately take advantage of level 0 of either track after you spawn, and you can expect a basic stat boost there. Levels 1 and 2 offer advantages specific to your class, and DICE says earning them can only be done through “teamplay progression and score XP.” The third and final level is a single-use ability.
The progress rate and power of each node (and for each class) is what DICE is currently testing in Battlefield Labs. What’s not changing, however, is that all weapons will be available for all classes. If you like the passives that come from using your chosen class’ Signature Weapon, all the better – but the crux of this entire dilemma is that you can simply choose not to care.
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The arguments against this lack of weapon limitation are plentiful, and many of them are simply re-heated from the Battlefield 2042 pre-launch months. Players tend to land on one side over the other here, because of how fundamental class co-dependency – and the limitations therein – are to what makes Battlefield, well, Battlefield.
More than what the change could do to Battlefield 6’s gameplay, the general sense is that DICE developers are being “forced” into doing this by EA’s upper management because it is seen as an instance of friction the game could do without.
According to a recent wide-ranging Ars Technica report, EA is betting the farm on the next Battlefield. It wants to bring in 100 million players, and it’s going to offer multiple ways of accessing the game to entice the largest possible number of them.
It’s impossible to divorce that design decision from the report. Class co-dependency, weapon and gadget limitations are often cited among the reasons why many players could never stick with the series; they’re as integral to Battlefield as Killstreaks are to Call of Duty. EA doesn’t want anything less than its own Call of Duty factory, and the publisher even went as far as hiring some of the higher ups who created that model with Activision’s shooter series.
The irony, of course, is that most players who tend to favour Call of Duty have no problems listing all the many things that prevent them from having the same kind of fun in Battlefield, which means any one of the series’ defining aspects may as well be significantly altered – or done away with entirely – in pursuit of taking away some friction.
There really is no way to tell how much that change will mess with the game’s character, or whether or not it’s even going to matter four, six or 12 months on from launch. For all we know, the game’s rumoured battle royale mode may well be the mode that takes off and dethrones Warzone as the go-to for casual players, leaving the core experience just to the Battlefield fans. Maybe then DICE will have more reason to revamp that whole system.
