Battlefield 6: Season 1 and REDSEC Review

After a brilliant launch, Battlefield 6's first season of additional content is here, and the results are...mixed

Like millions of gamers, I've been having a ton of fun playing Battlefield 6 over the past few weeks since its launch, and have been looking forward to the start of its first "season".

The first of three "parts" of this season offers plenty of free additional content for players alongside their implementation of a battle pass system, which has become the standard form of paid DLC for virtually every popular multiplayer game nowadays.

BF6's first content drop, as expected, came with a new map dubbed Blackwell Fields and a new mode called StrikePoint along with several new weapons, attachments, and even a new vehicle.

The season also launched with a surprise (well, kind of, given that it's been leaked for quite some time) - the debut of Battlefield REDSEC, a free-to-play tie-in offering their take on a battle royale mode.

There's been plenty of bitching and moaning on the internet from a select few disgruntled fans who seem dead-set on complaining about any little thing they don't like, but at the same time, there are some legitimate gripes players have that need to be addressed. After a couple of days playing the new content, I've gathered some thoughts on the good, the bad, and the ugly with Season 1 and REDSEC.

The Bad: Blackwell Fields

Let's start off with the content added for the "premium" portion of the game, or Battlefield 6 proper.

While individual tastes may vary, the new map does a good job in being visually distinct from other launch maps thanks to its darker colour palette and abundance of fire. The leaking oil pumps that can be ignited (and don't stop burning) are a nice touch, and if you're a sniper, you'll have a field day playing in this shooting gallery.

On paper, one would assume Blackwell Fields is a larger map, the kind of thing fans have been asking for since the open beta began - there's plenty of vehicles and jets are even present, which typically signifies it's one of the larger maps available.

On Conquest, which is of course the primary mode for multiplayer fans, the problem Blackwell Fields has is similar to the one several other maps BF6 has launched with, in that DICE has opted to force players into a meat-grinder rather than offering more space away from objectives to allow for flanking maneuvers.

Blackwell Fields is the worst offender out of any of the BF6 maps so far given the amount of flat space with very sparse cover in between capture points. It basically makes the map play like a cramped shooting gallery.

The boundaries for air vehicles are particularly bad, with jets having extremely little room to fly before they're forced to turn around, making one wonder why they included jets on the map in the first place if they were going to make their play space so comically limited.

The frustrating thing here is that drastic improvement to the flow of the map could be made with just minor changes.

Simply extending the map's boundaries to cover more area would allow players to take the "long way" around to objectives and relieve pressure on the main killbox as well as allow actual flanking to take place, which for some reason DICE seems to want to limit in most of their maps nowadays despite the most beloved battlegrounds in the series' history all making great use of such space.

Add in some additional cover in between objectives, and you'd have a solid Battlefield map.

The airspace is especially perplexing, since it doesn't seem to lend itself to any design philosophy and should have been addressed in testing.

It seems in order to entice Call of Duty players with more constant firefights and chaos, DICE is actively limiting the more strategic options and team-work approach that made Battlefield what it is. The free-to-play offering and infantry-focused modes are there for that - don't mess with the classic Battlefield modes that series fans are here for, or else you'll end up losing both sides in the process.

The Meh: StrikePoint

StrikePoint is a 4v4 round-based mode that is effectively Battlefield's version of Search & Destroy, though instead of arming/disarming a bomb each round (or eliminating the enemy team) players vye to capture a control point (or eliminate the enemy team).

Besides the destructability of Battlefield's environments, it doesn't really offer anything different than similar modes in other games, and in a weird choice given the low player count leaves little damage most rounds anyway, destruction to the map is reset after each round. One would think allowing it to carry over so it has a bigger effect on later rounds would be a more impactful change to set it apart, but I myself am not a big fan of round-based modes like this as it is so I can't say it does anything for me either way.

If you're a fan of those kinds of game types, you'll probably have some fun here, but if you aren't, like me you'll just stick to the rest of Battlefield's regular modes.

The Good: The Traverser Mark 2

New weapons and attachments are always a welcome addition, but the star of this month's new content for the base game is easily the new vehicle, the Traverser Mark 2.

The only quick, lightly armored transports available up to now are the military jeep, which is way too exposed and easy to be killed in making it only good to quickly get to a point or to strap it with C4 for a suicide run, and the ATV, which is even more exposed.

The new Armored Transport has four seats, with a driver, roof gunner, and two side gunners in an armored cabin, giving it a solid amount of firepower to go with speed that's more akin to the jeep. It plays a perfect middle ground between the light vehicles and the more heavily armored, slower "Infantry Fighting Vehicles", making it the runaway star of this first batch of content.

Overall, the "Rogue Ops" content drop for the paid game is disappointing, but can be pretty easily remedied - and if EA wants to salvage their dropping Steam reviews, they should definitely address the problems with the new map (and some of their launch ones), and take the criticism to heart for their future releases as so far they haven't seemed to get it.

Here's hoping Eastwood, which looks amazing from what we've seen so far, doesn't have the same problems when it comes out just a few weeks from now.

Now on to the "surprise" launch of Battlefield's free-to-play component, dubbed REDSEC.

First things first - although I have seen some issues that seem to primarily have come on the PC side of things, like the main game I haven't encountered any issues booting up or finding matches on my Xbox Series X, and aside from the occasional pop-in I haven't encountered any notable glitches either - the game play is silky smooth just like the main game.

The new modes, which comprise both Quad and Duo versions of Battle Royale as well as The Gauntlet, a smaller 32-player game type, all exist in the same menus and don't require any loading/switch over if you want to change between standard Battlefield modes and the free-to-play ones (of course if you don't have the full game, you'll only be able to play the BR/Gauntlet modes).

Progression (for overall XP, as well as for weapons, challenges, etc) is all combined and seamless as well, though I would like for them to adjust the stats page to differentiate between "core" modes and the REDSEC ones, as they're quite different in nature.

The Good: REDSEC

Admittedly, I haven't played a battle royale game in quite some time - it's been years since I tired of Call of Duty's Warzone, and before that I played quite a bit of Apex Legends before moving on from that as well.

I much prefer arena shooters or the large-scale warfare that Battlefield provides, but a battle royale mode can be a fun change of pace. Given I don't particularly care about the mode, I had little expectation before jumping in to try it...

After dropping in a few matches, I was pleasantly surprised.

It plays well, looks good (just like Call of Duty's Warzone, the scale of the map means things won't look quite as good as in normal modes, something that some gamers still don't seem to understand) and is a more-than-competent battle royale experience.

The vehicles, some of which I thought would break the experience given the over-powered nature of a tank, aren't nearly as intimidating as expected given the abundance of anti-tank weapons and gadgets available, and without a larger team to provide cover and prevent flanking, repairing vehicles mid-combat is far more difficult for engineers in this mode.

It doesn't reinvent the battle royale formula, but there are some notable differences to others on the market, most importantly the destruction.

Destroying cover and making life miserable for campers is certainly a welcome addition compared to the likes of Warzone, and taking out an entire building is possible in REDSEC - dropping in artillery or detonating well-placed C4 to take out a building or portion of it to take out enemy squad(s) is certainly a fun time.

In this battle royale, the encroaching boundary is a smoke-spewing wall of fire, that unlike a traditional battle royale which has its "out of bounds" area do incremental damage but allows players to traverse it for a short time, instantly burns you alive, forcing you to be much more mindful of where you are on the map.

Like other BR modes, REDSEC has "missions" you and your squad can partake in, ranging from retrieving bolt cutters to open a weapons locker and retrieve its loot to staying alive while carrying a device as it "decrypts", each rewarding you with loot and XP for completing.

The map itself, Fort Lyndon, is appropriately massive for a 100-player battle royale, with plenty of distinct areas ranging from a beautiful beach to industrial areas to urban streets and suburban cul-de-sacs.

It's a great map with plenty of colour and one that I hope they'll chop into normal (ie. still very large) Battlefield sizes to include in the base game at some point.

There are other differences to be found as well - the silly "Gulag" from Warzone is not present here, with players who get killed in the early stages of a match allowed to redeploy once so long as at least one of their squad-mates remains alive. Perhaps most refreshingly, there is no currency to worry about in a match, with items like upgrade kits allowing you to improve your weapons as you go, keys to find which can unlock powerful vehicles from trailers located around the map, while airdrop call-ins let you swap out a weapon for one of your own favourited customized guns, drop you a pallet of anti-tank launchers and gadgets, and more.

Some are complaining about the mode not offering a "solos" option, as currently only Duos and Quads are available (though you can still play solo and you'll simply be paired with other players to fill your selected squad size) - given Battlefield's emphasis on team work, not to mention most of the vehicles being rather useless without at least another player, it would seem like a pretty silly addition, but even so, it's ridiculous to give the game a bad review considering the vast majority of battle royale games (even Fortnite) launched without a solo mode, only adding in such options later.

Overall, it's a very well done battle royale game even if it doesn't reinvent the wheel.

If you're a fan of BR games, you'll likely have plenty to enjoy here - if you aren't, it's not going to change your mind.

The Great: The Gauntlet

When it comes to expectations, I really had none for the Gauntlet - the battle royale mode was already expected for quite some time even before leaks made it clear it was coming, while the Gauntlet mode remained in the shadows until details emerged just a day before its release.

The Gauntlet is essentially a 32-player tournament pitting 8 squads of 4 against each other in a series of timed missions.

Each mission has squads compete on a small chunk of the Fort Lyndon map to complete a series of objectives to rack up points for their team, with the two lowest-scoring squads being eliminated after each round until the final duel sees a winner declared, who will have won four rounds of action.

Each round randomly selects a segment of the map for players to compete in and one of eight different mission types that are scaled to the amount of players for that round, with points awarded for eliminating enemy players or for completing objectives.

The objectives in the mission types range from picking up and planting bombs at M-COM relays to capturing a series of small control terminals and holding them as long as you can, picking up and delivering hard drives to an extraction drone, holding devices that ping your location to other teams until they decrypt, and more.

The first game I played, I wasn't impressed as it seemed overly chaotic, with people seemingly running around like chickens with their heads cut off and it took a few minutes to even figure out where the objectives were.

After playing a few rounds however, I found myself having a ton of fun.

Playing as a squad is vital to success, as is playing the objective - while players can get away with being poor teammates in larger modes, doing so in the short rounds of The Gauntlet will see you quickly eliminated.

Simply killing opponents (other than in the mission type that just sees you eliminate "high value targets" and protect your own squadmates when they are designated as such) is not good enough to get past the first round or two of competition - completing objectives is absolutely paramount to avoid elimination, and doing so requires you and your squad to work together to have any chance of doing so.

Despite the unpredictable chaos and the fact that even good teamwork and strategy doesn't always work out since you can find yourself in the crosshairs of multiple squads at once, it manages to provide constant fire-fighting action while still retaining the team-based gameplay that Battlefield is known for.

In a nice touch, if a squad that advances to a new round is down a player (usually via a player quitting, or perhaps losing connection), the highest individually-scoring player from one of the eliminated squads will be slotted into the squad and given a chance to continue, which is a pretty cool way to prevent a team from being punished for one of their teammates leaving.

It's a surprisingly awesome addition and one I'll probably be spending a fair amount of time in alongside the core Battlefield modes like Conquest and Breakthrough.

The Meh: The Battle Pass

I'll start of by saying battle passes aren't really my thing - cosmetics (especially for a first-person shooter) aren't exactly high up on my priority list and as long as they aren't completely immersion breaking (looking at you, Call of Duty) I don't particularly care about unlocking them (unless they're classic variants of Mjolnir armour in Halo).

I do like them in the sense that the people that buy them allow the rest of us to enjoy more important additional content (like maps, modes, weapons, vehicles, etc.) for free, and compared to the gross loot boxes they replaced, battle passes are a much better solution for "live service" games.

I'll even buy the occasional pass if it's for a game I really like in order to support the title, and as an owner of the Phantom Edition of Battlefield 6 (hey, when EA actually does something right, I have to reward them in the hopes they do it right again), I received the "Pro" version of the battle pass, which has some additional unlocks along with progressing the first 25 levels of the 100-level pass right out of the gate.

Though some idiots still complain about the skins provided being "unrealistic" even though nothing about them is immersion breaking or over-the-top (ironically, some were complaining about a blue camo outfit being unrealistic that is actually nearly identical to one worn by a country's actual navy), the soldier and weapon/vehicle skins offered in the pass all keep the military aesthetic well and go nowhere near the immersion-ruining retardism that Call of Duty regularly churns out.

There are a handful of free items to unlock for all players as well (both for players of the base game or the free-to-play REDSEC, as progress and unlocks are all together) including the weapons and attachments, so only cosmetic items that don't affect gameplay itself are behind the paywall.

And, in a nice touch that many other games also do, progressing through the pass will have you unlock the same amount of points needed to unlock the next battle pass, which you can carry forward instead of paying again for the next one or you can use to unlock other premium cosmetics from the store instead.

As for progression, I've always found it odd that one pays for a set of something then has to "work" to unlock items in that set, but that's how "live service" games retain their players and get them to keep coming back, plus it offers a sense of reward as gamers play the game even after they've unlocked everything out of the base game.

The one problem I have with Battlefield's BP progression, which is a problem several other games like Halo Infinite share, is that the bulk of the progress is done through challenges which force you to play certain game modes or in certain ways.

While you still progress simply by gaining XP through playing any game mode, weekly challenges will earn you signficantly more progress through the 100 tiers of the battle pass - the problem is most of the challenges are tied to specific modes or styles of play, effectively the developer's way of trying to force you to play the game a certain way.

This has caused plenty of backlash given that this week's selection involves plenty of challenges that require you to play the battle royale or Gauntlet modes, with players who aren't interested in those kinds of modes and want to just play their classic Battlefield experience feeling like they are being forced to play something they don't want to in order to progress.

You do get 5 "re-rolls" each week for the weekly challenges, which for me and others seemed to always replace a REDSEC-based challenge with a base mode one when I tried it, though some have reported this isn't the case - if DICE simply makes sure it works that way so gamers who don't want to play those new modes don't feel like they're being left out, and communicate it effectively, that should stop those (legitimate) complaints.

Frankly, the challenges should be limited to things than can be achieved across any mode instead, such as simply earning X amount of kills or assists or revives, earning Y score, etc. that way players can progress through the pass without feeling like they're forced to play a certain way.

Otherwise, the battle pass system is rather standard fare, with only the slight difference being you have a few options to choose a "path" to unlock certain sets of cosmetics quicker than others if you'd like.

Speaking of progression, after being inundated with "XP farming" servers, DICE nuked basically all the progression outside of some base match XP for servers with anything other than "official" game modes, meaning those that were playing against bots to get unlocks are left out in the cold.

I see both sides of it, but one thing is for sure, the server browser shouldn't be filled with bot farms instead of legitimate Portal experiences that offer something unique to players. However, if players want to progress against bots, they should be able to - if that's fun for them, they paid for the game and they should be able to play their own way.

Some older gamers have even stated they were having a blast playing on bot servers with their buddies as they just get massacred by regular players - locking them out of progression entirely seems wrong.

Hopefully DICE will be able to strike a balance going forward - and they should also differentiate player stats so that their achievements against bots are separated from genuine online play.

The Dream: Sea Assault

Despite some whining from the always-unsatisfied denizens of the internet, EA and DICE have positioned themselves very well this year with their Battlefield offering.

The main game had a great launch, but this first batch of content, at least for the "paid" portion of the game, has been very underwhelming - some relatively minor adjustments would go a long way to fixing the map problem they currently have, which they'll need to address at some point to keep their core fans happy going forward.

As for the free-to-play component, they've managed to provide a polished, solid battle royale for the market along with a surprisingly fun Gauntlet mode that offers something fresh both for Battlefield fans and for the free-to-play gamers alike.

I haven't cared for Warzone in years so the exact state of their game isn't something I'm fully versed in, but whether REDSEC provides enough differences or improvements to be able to lure a significant chunk of their player base is anyone's guess - and if it can't, I wonder if there is enough demand out there for these kinds of offerings to be able to sustain both Warzone and REDSEC, especially when other shooters are looking at a similar market at the same time, like Arc Raiders which launches today.

One can't help but wonder what other experiences we could have had if those resources had been allocated to something more true to Battlefield than a battle royale mode...

EA and DICE have confirmed that something is in the works for fans of naval warfare that were disappointed it hasn't featured at all in Battlefield 6's multiplayer (though it was present in the campaign mission "Operation Gladius"), but what if the team that worked on this new BR for years instead fleshed out that kind of experience?

Drawing inspiration from the classic Space Assault mode from the original Star Wars Battlefront II, a Sea Assault mode could pit two massive battleships against one another in the middle of the ocean, with each side having access to AA/anti-personnel guns mounted on their ship, jets and helis on the top decks, and various amphibious assault craft and small boats to duke it out on the water with and make their way over to the enemy ship for boarding action.

Control points or other objectives on each ship could be captured or destroyed to turn the tide of battle for your side, and for major points in a game entire sections of a ship could be destroyed as the result of one side achieving a major objective, adding a clear visual que to easily see which side is winning without taking a look at the scoreboard, with the ultimate goal being to cause catastrophic damage and sink your enemy's ship.

That kind of mode would certainly be a boon for the game, and hopefully something like it is what DICE has in mind for its future naval warfare additions.

Another possible mode I hope they dedicate some resources to that would fit well in the Battlefield mythos would be a Horde-style PvE variant, where a large team of players (say 24 or 32) is tasked with defending a base against a full-scale assault by AI forces.

As a match progresses, players could unlock additional defenses (say turret emplacements, artillery bombardments, vehicles, etc) to aid in their battle, with perhaps a set number of tickets (lives) available to defenders as increasingly overwhelming waves of AI combatants charge at their defenses.

There are tons of possibilities - here's hoping that DICE continues to explore more different options, like they did with The Gauntlet, to continue to add to the great foundations that Battlefield currently has going for it.