As weekend two of the Battlefield 6 beta gets into swing, folks are increasingly skeptical of all these small to medium maps.
The lack of a truly “big” Battlefield map was the loudest criticism coming out of last weekend’s playtest, and the only new map added this week isn’t squashing worries that Battlefield 6 is prioritizing the Call of Duty crowd: Empire State, an infantry-only map with zero vehicles, is the smallest one we’ve seen yet.
The cries for clear skies and open ranges haven’t inspired an official response from Battlefield Studios, but DICE lead producer David Sirland assured fans that “large maps exist” earlier this week.
“Speed is a factor of map size. We picked these maps to make sure we hit the full-octane version of Battlefield on the head—and made everyone see we can handle that too,” Sirland wrote on X. “Large maps exist, and the tempo scales accordingly; you’ll be able to see soon enough!”
Even still, the way Battlefield 6 labels its modes has some questioning if EA has a different definition of “large” than the rest of us. The new Attack & Defend playlist, consisting of Rush and Breakthrough, is listed as “large-scale battles,” despite Rush’s cramped, aggressively linear 12v12 map layouts.
That disparity is already inspiring some decent memes: “Leaked” images of new Battlefield 6 maps that are literally just Call of Duty maps.
Devs have confirmed they are adding another large scale map this weekend from r/Battlefield
New Medium-Large Scale Map Leaked Before Release from r/Battlefield
Sirland’s comments about large maps prompted me to take a second look at BF Studios’ official website to determine how much large-scale Battlefield-ing we should actually expect from its nine launch maps, judged by how many vehicles are present. Fewer generally means smaller. Here’s what I’ve got:
- Siege of Cairo: Small, infantry-focused, tanks only
- Iberian Offensive: Small, tanks and jeeps
- Empire State: Small, infantry-only, no vehicles
- Liberation Peak: Medium, all vehicles
- Operation Firestorm: Medium or large (depending on how closely it sticks to the BF3 version), all vehicles
- Saints Quarter: Small, infantry-only, no vehicles
- New Sobek City: Described as “all-out war across construction sites and massive sand dunes” with jeeps, tanks, helicopters, but no jets
- Mirak Valley: Described as “the largest map at launch”, all vehicles
- Manhattan Bridge: Described as “close-quarters” with helicopters, but no mention of jeeps or tanks
By my count, that means Battlefield 6 will have just three maps that capture the full experience of transports, tanks, helicopters, and jets at launch. Personally I think that’s a bummer, because it also suggests only three maps have a large enough footprint for jets to even make sense. Hopefully, New Sobek City will still feel large with only helicopters, because the more I play Cairo, Empire State, and Iberian Offensive, the more I see myself filtering those out of my regular rotation in the full game.
Since most people probably aren’t going to comb over official map descriptions before launch, I suspect we’re barreling toward a nasty collision of expectations vs reality come October 10. Longtime fans want and expect Battlefield 6 to be huge the majority of the time, and I don’t think that’s what we’re going to get.
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