The best first-person shooting games have the capability of transporting you to different worlds and putting you in situations you would probably never encounter in your real life. While the late 2000s and early 2010s are often described as the peak for this genre, with games such as Call of Duty – Modern Warfare and Black Ops series, Crysis, Battlefield 3, and more, there has been a big transition in how these games are approached in the last decade or so.
From thrilling single-player campaigns, the industry has moved on to a multiplayer-first approach. So much so that the Battlefield series completely skipped the single-player campaign option for its 2021 game, Battlefield 2042. At a personal level, it felt like a great loss. As someone who grew up playing missions such as ‘All Ghillied Up’, ‘No Russian’, and ‘Takedown’, I felt like this genre would lose its soul without single-player campaigns. As the game had other fundamental issues and was plagued by bugs, it was hard to judge if lacking the campaign mode was its Achilles’ heel or not. Long story short, it was nothing short of a disaster for the series and made the developers go back to the drawing board.
Fast forward to late 2025, and now we have the new Battlefield 6, which again features a single-player campaign and a plethora of multiplayer modes.
Since Call of Duty Black Ops 7 is coming later this month, the main purpose of this review is to let you know if you need to buy this game right away or wait for the Activision game. Without further ado, let’s gear up and dive right into the review.
Table of Contents
Single player campaign
After giving such a buildup, I hate to tell you that the Battlefield 6 campaign story length is merely 6-7 hours. While it is a massive improvement from the absence of the mode in the last game, it definitely leaves you wanting more. If you belong to the minority of people who were planning to buy the game primarily for the single-player mode, let me tell you that paying full price for such a short campaign would make no sense at all.
While the game tries to capture the magic of the Modern Warfare series and previous Battlefield campaigns, and does show some promise, it largely feels like an afterthought. It has everything you would expect – high-octane drama, lots of gunfire, and near-death experiences, but the narrative feels a bit flat despite a good premise.
Let’s talk about the story, without giving away any major spoilers. In 2027, a NATO withdrawal from Georgia turns violent when U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Dylan Murphy’s squad is ambushed by the private military group Pax Armata. As Pax assassinates NATO leaders and gains power, Murphy joins a new CIA-led team, Dagger 1-3, to fight back across missions in Gibraltar, Cairo, and New York, uncovering a plot led by rogue operative Alexander Kincaid to attack global leaders. After losing his commander, Murphy leads Dagger through escalating battles and learns more about the creation of Pax Armata.
One benefit of the campaign being short was that I was completely hooked on the narrative. Unlike some other games, where you go through a series of twists and turns (often excessively stretched) to conclude, the Battlefield 6 campaign is brief and easy to follow.
Overall, I’d say that the single-player campaign should have been longer, but it is still a step in the right direction. As far as replayability is concerned, I don’t think many people will be motivated for a second run at the mode.
Gameplay and Multiplayer modes
This is where things get interesting. Let me first talk about the fundamental aspects of the multiplayer mode. Classes, which were removed from the last game, have been reintroduced to the game. This means you now have an option of four classes in Battlefield 6 – Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon.
Each class comes with certain signature weapons, gadgets, and traits. While previous games restricted you to using only certain weapons, depending on your class type, the new game lets you choose the weapons freely. While this has been a controversial move, I don’t think it hampers the gameplay in any way. If anything, I preferred the new system much more.
The environmental destruction mechanism in the game has been dialled up to increase its impact, and when you’re standing on a building’s roof and the whole structure collapses, you experience the sort of randomness that simply can’t be accounted for. At times, you’ll feel it’s unfair, but most of the time, it is just pure fun.
Coming to the game modes, let’s discuss each one in detail.
Conquest
In this large-scale map mode, two teams of up to 32 players battle each other to get hold of multiple flags across a map. Holding more flags reduces the enemy team’s points from 1000 to zero. The first team to lose all these points is defeated. Like a majority of players, this game mode is my favourite as it leads to a lot of chaos and the stakes feel really high due to the large teams.
Breakthrough
This is also a large-scale map mode, and here, teams are divided into ‘Attackers’ and ‘Defenders’. The attacking team advances through the map to reach the enemy base while the defending team tries to hold position. If the attacking team breaks through all the sectors, it wins the game. If it fails within the specified time limit, the defending team wins.
Rush
Another large-scale map mode, ‘Rush’ has an attacking and a defending side. Attackers have to plant bombs at two M-COM sites, and the defenders have to rush and defuse them. If attackers manage to bomb every sector, they win. If the defenders manage to stop them from doing so, they win.
Domination
This is a small-scale map game mode. There are two teams of eight players fighting to grab 3 flags. Teams earn points by holding flags, and matches end when a team reaches 200 points.
King of the hill
This is another small-scale map game mode in which you compete to take over a single objective at a time, and the first to reach 250 points wins.
Graphics and sound
These are aspects where Battlefield games have rarely disappointed, and Battlefield 6 follows suit. Running on the base PS5, I didn’t encounter any issues in terms of performance, and the game looked gorgeous. As far as graphics options are concerned, you get to choose between Balanced (higher visual fidelity) and Performance (up to 120Hz) modes.
I preferred to play the game in Performance mode while playing multiplayer modes, as I was more concerned about responsiveness than the visual fidelity, and Balanced mode in the single player campaign. Notably, in the Balanced mode, the graphics offered by the game were top-notch.
In FPS games, sound is quite important. If the audio department is not up to par, you’re taken out of the atmosphere in an instant. Thankfully, I found the audio excellent and got several tuning options to set the sound as per my exact setup.
Verdict
Battlefield 6 is easily one of the best first-person shooting games to have come out in a long time. This is primarily because of the core gameplay, sheer number of multiplayer game modes, return of classes, and variety in maps. The game still has some departments where it can improve — length and quality of single-player campaign, vehicle controls, and power imbalance in certain maps. However, when you start playing it with your friends, you will get the same thrill that you did when you played your first FPS game, and that is quite an appealing thing in itself, right?
Coming to the important question – Should you buy Battlefield 6 even before Black Ops 7 comes out? The answer is a resounding yes. You won’t be disappointed with what is on offer here. Call of Duty has one tough act to follow, and if teasers and trailers are any indication, Battlefield 6 seems to be in a safe position.
Editor’s Rating: 8.5 / 10
Pros:
- Excellent destructible environments
- Great Graphics
- Plethora of multiplayer modes
Cons:
- Short and mediocre single-player campaign
Game Details:
- Developers: Battlefield Studios, DICE, Criterion Software, Motive Studio, Digital Illusions CE Los Angeles
- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows, GeForce Now
Note: We played a review copy of Battlefield 6 on the base PS5.
