Over 20 Years of Battlefield… and I’m Lost on the Battlefield 6 Beta

Disclaimer: The following is my personal thoughts summarised into a structured narrative based on my experiences with the Battlefield 6 Beta. These are my honest, unfiltered reflections on the beta, the Battlefield franchise as a whole, and the place it holds in the Multiplayer FPS space today. I ask that any discussion in the comments remain constructive and respectful, both towards myself and towards fellow community members. Thank you.

I’ve been playing Battlefield since I was 13, when I first got my hands on the Battlefield 1942 multiplayer beta from a PC magazine demo disc. From that day on, I was hooked. I’ve played every single Battlefield up to Battlefield 1, only skipping Battlefield V and 2042. Yes even Heroes and Play4Free.

My personal golden era was Battlefield 2 and Bad Company 2, which I played at tournament level as part of the top clan in my country at the time. Those games weren’t just my favourites — they were where I competed, where I learned, and where I proved myself match after match. I wasn’t always the number one player in the lobby, but I could count on being in the top 3–5, and I knew how to make an impact on the battlefield: playing the objective, fulfilling my role as a squad member, and if I was squad leader, coordinating with other squad leaders. When I played as commander, I gave orders effectively, I used destruction, artillery, airstrikes, and the changing environment to plan and strategise effective outcomes.

Then I played the Battlefield 6 beta… and now I’m not so sure I even belong here anymore.

The gameplay is fast. Blisteringly fast. Blink and you’re dead. The time-to-kill is so short that I’m convinced my soldier has a death wish. Sustained damage? Gone. Medpacks? Also gone. Your health now magically regenerates after about three seconds — no squad medic required. It's a shame I can't say the same for ammo as getting resupplied is so rare you can swear that functionality was removed from the game as well. 

The impeccably well-created VOIP system from BF2 and the helpful, natural-sounding voice audio cues from squadmates in BC2 triggered by almost every in-game event have been replaced with mostly silence. The few voice calls that remain are simply background noise. Gone are the deliberate callouts that actually meant something in BC2.

Enemies are automatically spotted like some futuristic psychic vision mode, but somehow… I still get shot by people practically standing in front of me. At this point I’m half expecting to find out there’s an invisibility cloak in the game.

The sniper scope glare? I swear it’s visible from orbit. The maps? Tiny, funnelling everyone into forced killing lanes instead of the sprawling, multi-approach battlefields of the past. Classes? Apparently passé — weapons are no longer locked to them. Server browser? Gone. How are clans or friend groups supposed to coordinate without it?

And me? I’m too slow. I line up on a target, and before I can even fire, I’m down. On the rare occasion I catch someone unaware and open fire, they survive thanks to endless twitching, sliding, and weaving — even when no one is shooting at them. Then they turn around, fire two shots, and I’m dead. It feels like their guns shoot faster than mine, like they’re playing on some hyper-speed setting I don’t have access to.

The worst part? I’m used to fast games. I play Quake Champions regularly, and there I do fine — middle of the pack, sometimes higher. But here in Battlefield 6? I’m consistently bottom three. Sometimes dead last. My low point so far: 3 kills, 20 deaths.

So I have to ask… Is this still Battlefield?

Now to be clear, this isn’t the first time a Battlefield game has pushed players out of their comfort zone. When we went from BC2 to BF3, many of us struggled. I was one of them. The early BF3 netcode was, to put it kindly, terrible and the switch from server-side hit detection to client-side was “a hit” in more ways than one. Bullet curving, rubber banding, hyper-speed resyncs, and delayed deaths were all part of the package and all for the sake of speeding up gameplay to catch up to COD, yes even back then.

Here’s the difference though: BF3 felt like a return to form in many ways, a continuation of Battlefield’s identity. It wasn’t perfect, and you could argue BF4—which launched in even worse shape—ended up being the more polished multiplayer game between the two. But because of that one point we learned to get use to it. However through it all, BC2 still holds the title for the most fun I’ve ever had in the series.

All of this reminiscing makes me wonder: was Battlefield ever truly about large-scale, combined-arms warfare, destruction, vehicles, and squad tactics which I grew to appreciate? Or has it always been about speed, twitch reflexes, and constant motion with Dice just being really bad at creating the latter experience until now? Or has the series evolved into something I can’t keep up with, and is no longer intended for players like myself?

I don’t know. All I know is that for the first time in my history with this franchise, I feel like a stranger on the battlefield, a battlefield I no longer recognise, estranged from the series I once called my favourite FPS of all time.