Battlefield 6 is deliberately not pushing for cutting-edge graphics options like path tracing, because graphics aren't as important as being able to run the game well. The game also seems to scale pretty well on a wide variety of hardware, with people reporting that they can run it on PCs that are well below the minimum specifications.
That's not to say the current graphics are bad in any way though. From both a graphical perspective as well as the aesthetics, it still looks quite modern.
The biggest issue is that BF6 gameplay often looks almost indistinguishable from BF4, or even BF3 at times.
This is completely nonsense. If you put them side to side, there are pretty big differences in both the visual quality as well as the overall map design. Battlefield 6's maps are by far denser in terms of the amount of cover and overall details. Obviously a 1080p YouTube video with a ton of compression isn't going to show you the same amount of clarity as playing the game using a 4K monitor.
Washed-out colors, odd textures… overall it just gives the impression of an old game.
In certain scenarios, like when you're inside a building and looking outside, the lighting can be quite harsh and washed out. That isn't really a graphical issue. The artists responsible for the lighting just went a little overboard.
In BF6 I’m seeing the opposite problem: small maps with all the action crammed into a single central point, when they could be larger and denser, especially considering this game is only coming to next-gen consoles and PC.
Just curious, but which current-gen multiplayer game offers maps that are both larger and denser than the ones we find in Battlefield?
The real-time attachment swap system (Plus System), which was fantastic.
In terms of gameplay balance, the plus system covered up some of the flaws of 2042's map design. In terms of overall weapon balance it was pretty horrible as it removed the necessity to choose a loadout. You could just configure a single loadout that contained every possible combination that you could possibly need.
128-player mode, which works great when maps are well designed.
We didn't have a single map in Battlefield 2042 where 128 players worked well. It was inferior to the 64 player experience in pretty much every possible way. That's not just my opinion, but it was an opinion that was so widely shared that DICE chose to redesign significant portions of 2042 to support 64 players instead. In addition to that a Battlefield Studios developer admitted that they went for 64 players in Battlefield 6, because that's what the community wanted.