Battlefield 6
Battlefield 6 is a 2025 online-only first-person shooter video game developed by Battlefield Studios and published by Electronic Arts. Serving as the eighteenth installment in the Battlefield series, the game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on October 10, 2025. A free-to-play battle royale mode, titled RedSec, was released on October 28, 2025.
Set between 2027 and 2028, the game's storyline revolves around a conflict between a fractured NATO and Pax Armata, a private military company. Influenced by the previous entries Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4, Battlefield 6 features a serious tone. The multiplayer mode features four character classes: Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon, who each specialize with different weapons and combat strategies, and has several returning game modes, with the new Escalation mode being added.
After Battlefield 2042 received critical derision from both critics and players, a new title in the series began development under the leadership of Vince Zampella. With an estimated budget exceeding $400 million, the game is one of the most expensive video games to develop. Following leaks from March 2025 to July, Battlefield 6 was officially revealed later that month. Two open beta periods were held in August, with the first attracting over 500,000 concurrent players on Steam. The game was a critical and commercial success, selling over 7 million units in 3 days from release and becoming the biggest launch in the series' history. Battlefield 6 won two nominations for The Game Awards for Best Audio Design and the 16th Hollywood Music in Media Awards for Music Supervision.
Gameplay
Similar to its predecessors, Battlefield 6 is a first-person shooter. The game features four character classes: Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon. The Assault class is proficient with assault rifles and grenade launchers and favors a run-and-gun playstyle with faster health regeneration. The Engineer class uses submachine guns, can repair friendly vehicles, and specializes in destroying hostile vehicles with rockets. The Support class excels with light machine guns and supports teammates by resupplying ammo, placing makeshift cover, and healing and reviving allies. The Recon class can carry out battlefield reconnaissance, uses sniper rifles, and is ideal for long-range engagements as a headshot kill prevents opponents from being revived. While any class can use any weapon, each class has unique gameplay perks when using specific weapons. For example, Recon players can hold their breath while aiming with a sniper rifle. Weapons can be extensively customized with mods, but each weapon has a designated attachment point limit that cannot be exceeded.Battlefield 6 also introduces several quality-of-life improvements, including a new movement system called the "Kinesthetic Combat System", which allows players to lean around cover, hitchhike onto vehicles, and drag fallen soldiers to safety before reviving them. As with previous entries in the series, the game emphasizes environmental destructibility. Buildings can be demolished with explosives, and obstacles or floors can be destroyed to create new paths. Maps are sprawling, suitable for both infantry and vehicular combat. Each map also includes "Combat Zones"—smaller, more confined areas designed for close-quarters combat. At launch nine maps are available, with additional maps planned for release through post-launch updates.
Battlefield 6 offers multiple multiplayer modes, including returning modes such as Conquest, Breakthrough, Rush, Team Deathmatch, Squad Deathmatch, Domination, and King of the Hill. A new mode, Escalation, pits two teams against each other as they seek to control capture points in a map. However, the number of points gradually decreases, funneling players into specific map areas. Another new mode is Sabotage, which has two teams each take one six-minute long turn attacking and trying to destroy enemy boxes, while the other team defends. Whichever team destroys the most boxes in the shortest amount of time wins.
Portal
The Battlefield Portal feature returns in Battlefield 6 with a complete overhaul from its Battlefield 2042 iteration. In 2042, Portal was limited to a basic visual block editor and web-based configuration options. Battlefield 6s Portal is powered by the Godot engine, providing map creation and game logic tools that represent a significant advancement over the previous system. The new editor enables creators to build custom game modes, design original maps using Battlefield 6s existing map foundations and assets, and script complex gameplay mechanics.EA showcased Portal's capabilities prior to launch with demonstrations including a recreation of Counter-Strikes "Dust II", complete with bomb defusal mechanics, as well as various custom modes such as zombies survival and racing challenges. Within two days of Battlefield 6s October 10 release, the community had already produced notable creations, including a remake of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfares Shipment map and a Star Destroyer constructed from in-game assets, demonstrating the editor's versatility. Portal experiences can be shared through a dedicated community browser where players can discover and play user-generated content.
Battle royale
A free-to-play battle royale mode, titled Battlefield RedSec, was released on October 28 alongside the game's first season. It also includes a knockout elimination mode called "Gauntlet" and support for Portal.Plot
In September 2027, NATO forces prepare to evacuate Georgia to make way for the private military company Pax Armata, ostensibly in a peaceful transfer. While preparing for a briefing, U.S. Marine Raider Gunnery Sergeant Dylan Murphy and his squad Tempest 1-2 are ambushed by Pax forces in an unprovoked offensive on their base. Murphy rallies his squad to destroy critical cybersecurity installations to prevent Pax Armata from acquiring them; they succeed, but while escaping their extraction helicopter is shot down and crashes, which the team barely survives initially, but they then become completely surrounded and overrun by Pax troops that leads into an intense last stand gun battle that kills most of the squad, except Murphy, leaving him the sole survivor before his rescue.Over the next few months, the NATO Secretary General is assassinated by Pax Armata, and after no response from NATO, twelve nations leave the alliance in favor of allying with Pax. Meanwhile, Murphy is reassigned to a new Marine Raider squad, Dagger 1–3, under the command of CIA handler Melissa Mills. In March 2028, Dagger's squad leader Master Sergeant Haz Carter and sniper Staff Sergeant Simone "Gecko" Espina are deployed to Gibraltar to assist a British squad against Pax's occupation, before linking up with Murphy and Dagger's medic Staff Sergeant Cliff Lopez on the main offensive. At city hall, they witness the British squad's capture and execution by Pax's local field commander, Alexander Kincaid, who subsequently escapes.
In June, Mills assigns Dagger to extract biometrics CEO Fayek Selim from Pax occupied Cairo, with help from Ibrahim Al-Khatib, leader of Egyptian Army special forces Unit 777; the mission goes awry, resulting in Selim's death, though the squad extracts the intel needed from Selim's RFID chip in his thumb. The chip reveals Kincaid is planning an attack on New York City, where a NATO summit is being held. Dagger is deployed to Brooklyn to neutralize the Pax cell planning the attack, while Kincaid is revealed to be an ex-SAS operative who previously served with Carter, before the latter was forced to leave Kincaid behind during a mission. While Dagger manages to neutralize the initial attack, they realize Kincaid's real target is U.S. President Fernandez. The following morning, Pax ambushes Fernandez's motorcade; Dagger manages to extract the President and lead him to safety, but Kincaid ambushes Murphy and Carter, resulting in Kincaid fatally stabbing Carter. Before Carter dies, he makes Murphy squad leader of Dagger.
In the aftermath, Fernandez announces the creation of a NATO global response force while declaring war against Pax Armata. In July, Al-Khatib leads an Egyptian tank column to break through Pax's lines on the outskirts of Cairo. In September, with the addition of CIA operative Lucas Hemlock, Dagger is deployed to Tajikistan to neutralize Pax's air defenses near their home base, before joining NATO on the main assault, where they destroy hypersonic missiles containing the explosive and extremely destructive nano-compound NXC. Dagger apprehends Kincaid, who reveals that Pax Armata was secretly created and backed by the CIA, while also claiming that he was Mills' asset inside Pax, implicating her role in Pax's rise. Kincaid attempts to pull a knife, but is shot dead in self-defense by Hemlock. Mills cuts contact with Dagger and calls in an airstrike to cover up loose ends, though the squad manages to escape.
Three days later, Dagger infiltrates Mills' home in McLean, Virginia, where they interrogate her and begin to put together the pieces surrounding their missions: Pax Armata attacked NATO in Georgia because they were after "Project Veles", technology which could black out satellite imagery and which was housed in the installations Murphy destroyed; the operation in Gibraltar was their second, successful attempt at acquiring it, allowing them to operate unseen in critical operations like in Cairo, Brooklyn, and Tajikistan; and Selim was selling to both sides by providing Pax with the intel they needed to conduct their Brooklyn assault. Together, Mills and Selim supplied Pax with the NXC and the intel on Veles. Under duress, Mills reveals that Pax Armata was intended by the CIA to consolidate all anti-American movements under one banner and serve as a common enemy for the United States, with the intention of eventually having one of Mills' assets take over the organization, and that Kincaid was indeed one of Mills' moles. However, the PMC ultimately grew too large for the CIA to control. After Dagger eliminates a Pax Armata team sent to extract Mills, Murphy, under orders from Dagger's new anonymous handler, executes her.