Battlefield 6 campaign review

The plot pits two factions against each other who seem to have unlimited pocket money for military hardware. On one side, you have the Pax Armata, a newly formed private military outfit made up of unnamed ex-NATO countries playing the baddies. On the other, it’s you and your squad, Dagger 13, fighting for NATO to stop Pax from sending the world into a complete tizzy.

If you’re looking for a gritty, unflinching tale about the horrors of war, you might be a bit disappointed. The campaign feels like it’s playing it a bit too safe, leaning heavily on the familiar themes of American patriotism and Middle East conflicts that we’ve seen a dozen times before. The story took its sweet time to grab our attention, and it’s more Fast and Furious than Full Metal Jacket in its narrative depth. You won’t really care about the villain, but its neatest trick is using the story to introduce key multiplayer maps, giving you a fun "oh, so that's why that building is a crater" moment.

The gameplay is a slow burn, taking about half the campaign’s runtime to really get going. Once it finds its feet, though, it’s a proper blast. The missions throw a little bit of everything at you: stealth, frantic gunplay, tank battles, and car chases. Your four-member squad, Dagger 13, gives off a wonderful Battlefield Bad Company 2 vibe, with you rotating through three members to get the job done.

It’s not without a few fumbles, though. While the enemy AI is aggressively fun to fight, your own teammates can be as thick as two short planks. Their movements are often jerky, and they have a habit of getting stuck behind scenery at crucial moments. It just doesn’t have the same level of polish as a Call of Duty campaign. And then, just as things get outrageously cinematic and interesting, it all screeches to a halt on a cliffhanger ending. We can only hope EA plans to add more chapters if players enjoy it.

Graphically, Battlefield 6 isn’t here to melt your PC. The visuals are actually quite average, as the developers have clearly focused on making the game run smoother than a greased weasel, especially for multiplayer. That said, the series' love for lens flare and Michael Bay-esque lighting is present in spades.

This focus on optimisation pays off handsomely. Our Nvidia RTX 5090 barely broke a sweat, averaging over 130 FPS at 4K with all settings cranked to the max. With DLSS set to Quality, that figure jumped to a whopping 180+ FPS. There’s no ray tracing, a deliberate choice to ensure the game runs well on entry-level hardware, which is a commendable move. If it runs this well on a top-shelf kit, gamers with more modest rigs should expect solid performance.

Battlefield 6 is a video game-y first-person shooter. It doesn't take any bold steps, nor does it make the war aspect of its DNA any more interesting than the plot of Mission Impossible. You don't really care about the main villain or the bad guys, but hey, everything in between is fun.

It’s a fun, flashy, and brain-off appetiser that gets you nicely warmed up for the multiplayer main course, which is clearly where the real war will be waged.