Review
Call of Duty: Warzone
Unmatched gunplay, endlessly undermined by integration churn, file sizes and cheaters.
No. 25 in The Noteworthy 50 · Shooter
Battlefield 6
DICE returning to what Battlefield is for: 64 players, collapsing buildings, and a tank arriving at the worst possible moment.
Battlefield 2042's 2021 launch was one of the worst in the series' history — no classes, no scoreboard, 128-player maps with nothing in them — and the recovery took years. Battlefield 6 is the apology, and it is a substantial one. Classes are back with real identities. Squad play matters again. The maps are built to a human scale where infantry have cover and vehicles have lanes.
Destruction is the headline. Buildings collapse structurally rather than cosmetically, and a match's terrain at minute thirty bears little resemblance to minute one. That has always been Battlefield's differentiator and this is the best implementation of it — a defensive position is temporary, because someone will eventually remove the wall you are behind.
The scale still sings
What no other shooter offers is the combined-arms moment: a squad pinned in a building, a friendly tank rolling in from a flank, a helicopter overhead, and all three of those being other players making their own decisions. When it comes together it is the most spectacular thing in multiplayer gaming. When it does not, you spend ninety seconds running to a fight and die to someone you never saw. That variance is the deal Battlefield has always offered.
The reservation is EA. Post-launch support for Battlefield has historically been inconsistent, and the pricing structure — premium purchase, battle pass, store — asks a lot up front for a live commitment that may or may not be honoured. On the evidence of the first year, it is being honoured. Buy it for what it is now, not for the roadmap.
What works
- Destruction and physics are the best the series has ever shipped
- The return of a proper class system fixed 2042's central mistake
- Combined arms — infantry, armour, air — genuinely interlock again
- Audio and spectacle remain unmatched at 64-player scale
What doesn't
- $70 up front and then a battle pass and a store on top
- Launch stability and server issues persisted for months
- Map quality across the rotation is uneven
- EA's post-launch commitment to Battlefield is historically unreliable
The Catch — what it will cost you
The oldest complaint in modern gaming, and it applies fully here: a $70 premium purchase that also carries a seasonal battle pass and a cosmetics store. Nothing sold affects power meaningfully, but paying full price and then being sold a pass remains hard to defend.
Who it's for: Players who want the largest-scale combined-arms warfare available and miss classes done properly.
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The Finals
Mechanically the most inventive shooter of recent years, held back only by an audience that never got as large as it deserved.
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Helldivers 2
The best pure co-op shooter in years, and proof that a premium price and a fair battle pass can coexist.