The "Cod-ification" of Battlefield 6 is Ruining It

(Intro)

Since its release, Battlefield 6 has proven to be a competent return to a series that has been missing for quite some time. 2042 did everything in its power to push people away, and even after they resolved many of the issues players had with the game years later, the damage was done. People assumed battlefield as a series was gone forever. But with this entry, even though it’s far from perfect, the bones and foundation are absolutely solid and a proper return to why people enjoy this franchise so much. And recently, with the release of season one, their take on a battle royale has also been added; free to play for anyone who would like to try it. And after owning the game and putting a little over thirty hours into it, I’ve been enjoying my time. And this battle royale has something for a lot of people too. However, even after just a few days, I already have noticed some issues that if not addressed properly or at all, will quickly spiral this mode and arguably the entire game out of control and create something that nobody wants. So today, let’s go over the battle royale mode, my general thoughts on it, the positives and negatives and then talk about season one as a whole package and why people are worried the “Cod-ification”of Battlefield 6 and how it’s potentially seeping its way into this game.

(The battle royale mode)

The mode itself is pretty standard for the most part, but in a good familiar way. Battlefield didn’t need to reinvent the wheel with this; they have enough of their own uniqueness when it comes to powerful vehicles and ways to counter and play around them, that they definitely succeeded in making players think strategically about whether or not they want to hunt down a vehicle key card to gain access to a tank. Or fly a helicopter to cover more ground and provide air support. The fact that each class still retains many of their unique benefits makes it so that either having one of each class or stacking multiple of the same class depending on what your game plan is can be viable. So, there is tons of room to play around with different class setups to find something you like. But personally, my favorite mechanic of this battle royale is the weapon upgrade system. Each class of weapon has upgraded kits you can find throughout the world and using them allows you to choose either specific attachments or setups for how you want to kit up your guns. And they go from common being gray, all the way to epic I think, which is purple. And I really like this as a middle ground between having to find the parts individually like in PUBG and the atrocious loadout system in Warzone. But here’s where my biggest problem with the mode rears its ugly head. There are pods that can drop during the match or are rewarded for completing missions that give you access to one of your multiplayer weapon builds. And while luckily, unlike Warzone it’s only one gun and not an entire class with perks and the like, just the fact this is in the game worries me because it’s going to lead to meta’s being discovered within the first week or two and everyone just using that or as close to that as possible if you don’t have everything unlocked. Which I guess is kind of a good thing that it takes so long to unlock attachments on guns. It won’t be easy to just farm experience to level up the guns. That is, until Dice does something like adding a permanent playlist in multiplayer on the smallest map, and you can just grind. But we’re getting way too ahead of ourselves. I’m calling that it will happen, but for now let’s focus on season one and the battle royale.

(The battle pass)

The battle pass itself is so meh I could throw up. I genuinely don’t care about anything in the battle pass except the brand-new weapons because that’s actually new content that matters. Maybe I’m an exception to this rule. And of course, like Call of Duty, you need to grind the hell out of the pass to unlock it. And not only is the UI for it really bad, but how you unlock it and how long it’s most likely going to take, people will be lucky if they complete within the twelve-week period. This is where my concern and the communities concern of the “Codification” of Battlefield begins to creep up. This is all laid out exactly like how they would do it, with cosmetics that are only okay, but once again the problem of them eventually caving and adding more wild and outlandish skins is more apparent now than ever. It’s going to happen; it’s a matter of when and not if. But if you care about stuff like this, then not buying the pass and letting the developers know online is the only way people can voice their disdain with the whole cosmetic debacle. People from the community have made better mockups of both the UI and skins for the factions using real world military groups as a baseline. And they looked good too. But I don’t know if Dice will get the message in time or at all.

(Why people are worried)

People’s concern with both cosmetics and the general direction of the game don’t come out of nowhere. For how much this game gets right, it gets the same amount if not more wrong. And while I will commend them seemingly listening as much as they can, it’s the tried and true one step forward, two steps back. Cool, they made some adjustments to the cosmetics, so they aren’t as bright and, in your face, as they previously were. That’s cool. But my biggest concern stems from the general balance of the game and how people interact with it. One of the new maps they added, sorry I forgot the name of it, the hillside map with pretty much zero cover, all the conquest points are close together and its sunset so the bloom and glare across the map is atrocious, it’s terrible. I played it once and will most likely never play it again if it pops up. I get where all this comes from; they are specifically catering to as wide a net of players as possible. Not even just Call of Duty players, everyone. Anyone who would be interested in a military shooter, they are shouting to the heavens this game is for you. And while I’m sure that hilarious one hundred million players’ number is being laughed at by investors, it just sets a terrible precedent that this game isn’t being made for enjoyers of Battlefield. It’s filling out a quote that it could never reasonably hit. And that toxic mentality is going to ruin this game for everyone as they shove more cosmetic and weapon crap into overly expensive battle passes. Why is the pass fifteen dollars after already paying seventy-five taxes? Yeah, live service I get it. But could season one not be free to just test the waters and get player feedback so they can make future passes that cost money have items and skins and weapons people would be willing to pay for? Was that not possible? I guess not. I’ll give Tarkov credit, at least their season zero pass was completely free, and you just had to play and level it up. Plus, it was around for a long time. We’ll see what the consensus is across the community after the initial shock of all the new content dies down. But I don’t think it’s going to be positive overall.

(Outro)

Battlefield 6’s new battle royale has some fun to be had. If you have friends who you normally play multiplayer with, I would absolutely suggest either duos or squads and take those roles a little more seriously and try to work together for a singular goal: to survive until the end. There are enough mechanics and the progression during a match is smooth enough that you can have a good time with it and either mess around or try to win. Meanwhile, everything else that was added has me concerned with how this game is going to handle its own content going forward. I’m calling it now and I want to be wrong here so badly; Dice will create the problem; there will be evolving meta’s in the battle royale that rotate out each season and they will sell you the solution being blueprints for guns that have most of what you would need on a weapon to be effective. If this plays out the doomer in me thinks it will, this mode and the entire game is going to sink so fast. Not even portal and user generated content will be able to fix it. So, if you have strong opinions about the direction some of the monetization is going, let Dice know how you feel, respectfully of course. Otherwise, we’re just going to get a watered-down Call of Duty, and I think for enthusiast of this franchise, that’s a nightmare scenario. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on the battle royale mode added to Battlefield 6, the season one battle pass and be sure to subscribe for more videos about the slippery slope games tend to ride before their inevitable caving to their greedy overlords. I hope to see you in future ones.