Battlefield 6's Trailer Was A Lie

 Battlefield 6 just wrapped its second beta weekend and the community is divided. Some players swear it’s the next big thing, but I walked away shaking my head. This wasn’t the Battlefield I grew up on. Instead of sprawling, all-out-warfare, we got jammed into tiny, overcrowded maps that felt more like that other shooter. And after rewatching that first reveal trailer, I can say it outright: it was a lie.

 I grabbed some screen grabs from that original trailer (which you can view on YouTube here).  Comments are added in the caption of each image.  Where, oh where, are these epic Battlefields we see in the trailer because they certainly were not in the open beta weekends.

There is in fact no vehicles, let alone helicopters, on this map.  The bridge as well is not part of the map.  This could have been such a cool experience if the bridge and adjoining housing area were all part of the map.  But nope; instead we get a couple blocks of murder tunnel buildings.

 

Remember Gulf of Oman?  Heartlessgamer does.  This clip from the video led me to believe maybe we'd be heading back to that classic map.  Maybe it'll be included upon release?

Multiple vehicles!? Tanks no less!  Sign me up.  Oh wait; sorry the best the Battlefield 6 beta could offer is two vehicles and zero open spaced on the map.

An army running off to fight?  Not in Battlefield 6 beta where most matches felt like a couple squads.  Battlefield 6 also did the rare thing in the series and took a step back on max player count on a map.  Apparently 128 was too many so we have to go back to 64.  I guess that's fine since they also made tiny little maps instead of sprawling battlefields.

This image is the heart breaker because what is shown here would be an amazing start to a Gulf of Oman style map made in a modern Battlefield game.  None of the maps have anything close to this image. How the hell did they put this in the trailer and miss that this, THIS, is what we expect of Battlefield games?

See; they were trying to warn us in the trailer.  The trailer, in fact, wasn't anywhere close to the actual game we were going to get.

Battlefield 6 Open Beta Thoughts

Here we go.... again

 The Battlefield 6 open beta opened it's doors early this week and lots of players are jumping in; me included.  I have some thoughts and I am going to come right out and say it: I am not sure what this is but it isn't Battlefield.

 I've never swung so far from hype to disappointment with a game in my entire gaming career.  Coming off an extremely well executed multiplayer reveal event it felt like EA / Dice had everything headed in the right direction for Battlefield 6.  We were back to Battlefield baby!

 How wrong I was now that I am getting a taste of the beta.  It is hard to put into words but the feel of the game is closer to Call of Duty (CoD) than it is Battlefield.  Maps feel claustrophobic, gunplay is sloppy, movement is filled with slides, and I have no idea what they are doing with classes.  How hard was it to just stick with the classic assault, medic, support, and engineer?  Why does everything have to get mixed up and why are weapons not locked to classes?

A dusty street; wonder where the enemy is hiding

 The visuals and sounds of the game are amazing, but the visual clutter (smoke, dust, stuff flying around, etc) makes it very difficult to figure out what is going on.  Enemies that are inside buildings are basically invisible.  It is nearly impossible to look and know where you should expect enemies and where you should not.  It doesn't help that, at least in the beta, the maps feel like they are more corridor shooters than they are battlefields.  Players are just constantly funneled into meat grinders.

 I had hoped with the return of destruction that we'd be able to get some creative ways to get around the meat grinders, but it seems like maps are designed in a way that you can destroy everything around the meat grinder but not the actual meat grinder itself.  Players have to go through them.

 Another area I can't eloquently describe in words, but I'll try is a quote I'll take from my son: "TTK is high but TTD is low".  Basically the amount of time it takes to kill a target feels high but the time it takes you to die is low.  I have had so many encounters where I empty my magazine but haven't landed the kill so have to change to a sidearm to finish it off which then puts me at a disadvantage if there is another player in the fight.  Yet at the same time if I stick my head out around a corner I'm ending up dead instantly.  There has also been times, even when watching the recorded video back, where the damage log in game shows me taking 5 distinct damage but all I can tell is the enemy pulled the trigger one time.  I am assuming there is some desync going on between server and client but it's hard to tell.

Vehicles feel grounded and powerful

 The moment to moment gameplay also offers no downtime or rest.  It is constant action in every mode I've tried; whether conquest or breakthrough.  I can't even count how many times I've broken through enemy lines where I felt like I could take a moment to get my bearings only to have yet another player appear right next to me from some hidden alleyway; they being as surprised to see me as I am to see them.  That constant fight or flight feeling is more a CoD thing than it has ever been a Battlefield thing.

 It is also telling when CoD fans are out there claiming "CoD is dead!" after playing BF6.  This clearly shows 6 is catering towards the CoD fans.  There are numerous CoD streamers that are binging the beta and loving every minute of it. So it really does seem like Battlefield 6 was catering to that segment.

"Large scale battles" minus the "large scale"

 

 With that said there is still vehicles and larger scale fights to be had in Battlefield 6, but they are a lot harder to find than I'd of expected. If someone told me I was playing the next Call of Duty I'd of believed them.  Even the UI feels closer to CoD than it does to Battlefield.  It's a damn shame. Honestly if I want a Battlefield fix I am going back to 2042. For all of it's flaws at least 2042 feels like a Battlefield game. 

Battlefield 6 Fixing Secure Boot Required

 Oh boy!  Battlefield 6, including the open beta tests, will require that your PC has Secure Boot enabled.  This will mean you must have a motherboard and BIOS version that supports it!  Fortunately most motherboards these days support secure boot and Windows 11 is forcing the issue for many so if you've already upgraded to 11 then you are probably good to go.  Unfortunately if you are in a spot like me still running Windows 10 and never went through the steps to get ready for Secure Boot then it will take some work!

 What is secure boot? "Secure Boot is a security standard in modern computers that ensures only trusted and digitally signed software is allowed to run during the system startup process."  Basically it stops bad stuff from running when your computer runs up.

 Why are games requiring it all of a sudden? Because of cheaters.  Cheaters ruin everything.  Secure Boot helps game's anitcheat verify the system's integrity since many cheats start up and then hide themselves during the boot up process.  Secure Boot reduces the chances of cheater's software being able to hide itself.

 What does this mean for the upcoming Battlefield 6 open beta weekend? We are going to hear a lot about Secure Boot!  So in the interest of sharing for this fine Blaugust let me walk through the steps I had to take on for my own situation.  The good news is the open beta client is available now to preload and while you can't play the actual game you can boot it up to verify your secure boot is good to go.

Note: this situation will be very context dependent on your Windows version and PC hardware.  My details are below.

• Windows: Windows 10 Pro
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE 

 The first challenge I ran into was figuring out how with the Gigabyte BIOS to get Secure Boot options.  This required for me to first disable CSM Support.  Once CSM Support was disabled I then had to reboot and enter BIOS set up again.  Secure Boot was then available but it would not let me set it to enabled.  This seems to be a bug with the BIOS and I had to switch the mode option from Standard to Custom and then back to Standard.  Once done Secure Boot was enabled.

 However, after booting up my PC refused to boot into Windows.  It turns out that my boot drive was still running with an MBR (Master Boot Record) instead of the GPT (GUID Partition Table) which is required by Secure Boot.  This was likely a hangover from when I originally upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10.  Fortunately Microsoft has a tool, MBR2GPT, that is a safe and effective way to transition your boot drive.  

 When I tried to run the command (via command prompt) mbr2gpt /validate I got an error: ERROR: MBR2GPT can only be used from the Windows Preinstallation Environment. Use /allowFullOS to override.  It turns out that MBR2GPT is meant to be run in the Windows Preinstallation Environment which takes a lot of hassle to get access to.  Instead I researched if it was safe to use the /allowFullOS option and reports indicate it was safe.

  After running mbr2gpt /validate /allowFullOS the utility ran and verified my drive was running an MBR.  So I ran the mbr2gpt /convert /allowFullOS command and a short time later the process finished and my MBR had been converted to GPT.

 I rebooted my computer and entered the BIOS again and walked through the steps to disable CSM Support and enable Secure Boot.  I saved the changes and when the PC booted it booted into Windows as expected and once navigating to system settings I could see that Secure Boot was enabled.  Success!

 The real test was then to boot up the Battlefield 6 open beta client and I was rewarded with....

 

Voila!  I hope your Secure Boot journey is simpler than mine. 

Battlefield 6 Multiplayer Reveal

 We interrupt this regularly scheduled Blaugust 2025 plan to bring you exciting thoughts and opinions from the Battlefield 6 multiplayer reveal event that was held on 7/31.  If you didn't catch the event live you can catch up with the video below.  Read on below the video for my thoughts.

 First I want to acknowledge that this was a top tier event and reveal.  It was jam packed with details, revealed upcoming open beta test dates for the game, had the release date (October), and best of all: had hundreds of streamers lined up to stream the beta version of the game immediately following the announcement so we could all see immediately what the game was all about.  This is everything we keep thinking we will get from game announcements at big shows like Summer Games Fest!  Embark studios take note; this is how you properly announce a game.

 The game itself looks to be in amazing shape and brings Battlefield back to form.  It is near-future modern military in theme but feels more grounded than Battlefield 2042 did with the same near-future idea.  There will be a healthy dose of single player to go with 6 and then multiplayer galore.  Portal is making a return allowing players to set up all sorts of custom servers; from hardcore mode (one shot, one kill) to crazy custom maps built with the in-game map editor.  One such map features in the reveal had players running up a giant ramp dodging falling buildings and vehicles.

 The standard class-based Battlefield is back.  Gone are the idea of specialists.  Players will be back picking from assault, recon, medic, and support/engineer.  Each will feature many of the expected weapons and special items that we've come to know.  More details are needed to see what will be in the full game but the Battlefield community has rejoiced this return to form.  Battlefield 2042 went the specialist route and had wide open classes before ratcheting them back down to the classic formula (though many will argue too late in the games lifecycle to matter).

 The action on the Battlefield looked amazing. Graphics, as expected, are top notch.  Building and environment destruction are back and better by the looks of it. Buildings routinely were getting shredded in the streams that I watched.  Infantry could not bunker down as they do in 2042 behind impervious shipping containers.  While I am sure Battlefield 6 will still have some unbreakable portions the over all destruction is definitely ramped up in what we've seen so far.

 Some other tidbits that were cool to see.  Downed teammates can be dragged so that you can resurrect them in cover. Infantry have more movement options with crawls and slides.  I especially like the addition of a backwards crawl while in the prone position where the player can point their weapon at their feet but still head backwards.  The jury is still out on the all the sliding around as that may feel out of place in Battlefield games so we'll see how that turns out.

 The game will not have a server browser for the main game mode but will have a server browser for the Portal modes.  This is a sore spot in the community, but personally I've not played games with traditional server browsers for 10+ years so I really could care less.  I enjoy the open game and hit "Play Now" to get right into a match.  My buddies and I can group up and do the same.  It is honestly antiquated to expect to need to host and run servers for modern games.  I get the desire for others and would argue Portal offers them the ability, but it will still come up short for those willing to die on the hill of a server browser for the main game mode.

 I am excited for the game and looking forward to the open beta test weekends coming up.  They really have done a good job across the board to bring back the Battlefield we all love and remember.  Just from how the reveal was handled I get a sense that EA/Dice really, really care about this franchise and doing right for the community.  It won't be perfect but damn does it look better than the recent titles we've gotten.  Add me to the "I'll probably give in and preorder the game".

Gameplay from the new Battlefield 6

 Some gameplay videos have appeared online for the new Battlefield game!

 In the first video we get a healthy look at a building being destroyed (grabbed a screenshot above).  It will be good to have heavy destruction back in the genre!  While there is some destruction in 2042 it pales in comparison to past games like Bad Company 2.

 In the second video we get some infantry game play.  The theme appears to be modern times which will be a return to the trend of BF2, BF3, and BF4. I am looking forward to a return to the modern battlefield for the series!