// KOTAKU — GAMING
Battlefield 6, One Year Later
One year ago this month, Battlefield 6 launched on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Over the last 12 months, EA’s latest entry in the long-running FPS series has received numerous free updates, modes, maps, and more. Not all of it has been good. Some of it has been great. And through it all, fans have been very vocal, talking (and sometimes yelling) about it all online as DICE and the other studios working on BF6 continue to expand and improve on 2025’s best-selling game.
Even before Battlefield 6 launched, the game’s beta had people claiming the franchise was back after a few less-than-stellar previous releases. At one point, the Battlefield 6 open beta reached over 500,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. A lot of people, myself included, loved how much BF6 played and looked like BF4, one of the best games in the series. Its grounded combat, snappy gunplay, impressive destruction, and focus on performance really won a lot of people over, even some fans who had fallen out of love with Battlefield.
However, there was some controversy during the beta, with a big complaint from fans being that the game’s maps were too small. This has continued to be an issue that has dogged Battlefield 6 over its entire first year, even as some larger maps have made their way into the shooter. There was also a lot of debate around cosmetics and specifically around goofy skins, something Call of Duty had been including for years. Battlefield fans were hopeful that EA wouldn’t shove a bunch of crossover skins into the game, and the devs promised that the plan was to keep BF6’s visuals grounded and realistic. CoD seemingly reacted by making some changes ahead of BLOPS7‘s launch regarding cosmetics.
In the weeks after it launched in October 2025, Battlefield 6 had extremely positive vibes. It reached over 700,000 concurrent players on Steam and became one of the year’s biggest games in just a few days. While there were some complaints about how grindy the game could feel and some yelling about odd changes to the franchise’s iconic Conquest mode (which were rolled back in less than 72 hours), the overall reaction to Battlefield 6‘s multiplayer was positive. And Battlefield 6‘s devs seemed responsive to complaints.
The launch of the game’s first season on October 28 brought with it a new map and a battle royale mode, Redsec. Neither was well received by the community. The battle royale mode was criticized for forcing players to play in squads and for shoving BF6‘s class system into the mode despite that not being a good fit. Redsec’s massive map was also criticized, not because it was too big, but because players were upset that the first really big map added to BF6 was only available in the game’s battle royale mode.
It didn’t help that Season One’s first new map, the first new battleground added to BF6 post-launch, was a complete dud. Blackwell Fields was too open, too small, and too boring. I found it to be extremely ugly and just not much fun to play on. Season One also brought plans to introduce “Blue Bro” to the game. This was a blue-tinted skin with a skull face mask that was going to be added to BF6. Many fans weren’t happy about this, claiming it went back on EA’s promise to not include zany or unrealistic skins in the game. The devs eventually nerfed the skin’s vibrancy, which pleased some.
It was clear that by the end of October, BF6‘s honeymoon phase was over. The good vibes began to vanish as fans continued to complain about small maps, a problem made worse by the fact that some players used in-game tools to turn BF6‘s Redsec map into a massive, classic Battlefield warzone. That community creation was so popular and well-received that the devs seemingly acknowledged it and the desire for bigger maps, promising they were in the works. And before the year could end, EA was caught potentially using AI tools to generate some in-game assets. An emblem that generated scrutiny was changed not long after it was added, but it left a sour tast