J4MES OX4D

He'll never walk alone that's for sure. That was a wheely stupid thing to do first game of the season.

Yeah, there's 8 maps (6 small ones est) and then one more with Firestorm. That will be the most popular by a mile I bet and then we gotta hope that every map after that they release will be similar in philosophy. If they release one map every two months then people are just going to walk away. I wish it was like BF4 where you would get a brand new regional map pack. I think it had a total of 34 maps in a year which was insane considering how top quality the majority were. I'll be stunned if we get to 15 in a year on BF6 and I'm expecting more shoeboxes post-launch rather than blockbuster landscapes. They'd be better remastering a chunk of BF3/4 maps if they can't handle the work.

It's definitely a good game for Call of Duty players and ones that didn't play Battlefield in its golden era. Another small, linear urban map released today which means we've literally played half the original maps available in the final game and we are yet to actually see a true battlefield. I will probably pick this up for the campaign and because I can still get 20-30 hours out of the multiplayer but I honestly can see myself getting bored as Conquest plays more like domination and matches just blur into one. I went back to Battlefield 4 last year and it was just breathtaking how spectacular everything is even to this day. The map variety, quality and mechanics made for one hell of an experience that has never been repeated, not even in Battlefield since. I'm hopeful this game can get close to those glory days and it has come a long way after the travesty of 2042 but if they end up losing 80% of their players to Call of Duty a month later then a lot of their design choices will have been in vain at the expense of loyal fans.

This was MW2🤣

I've pretty much watched all the content creators thoughts post-beta and without the sponsorships and it seems a lot of them share similar feelings. To sum it up briefly:- - the game looks great and is mechanically decent - gunplay feels good - the game is very fast paced - gameplay has devolved more into Call of Duty and they will sacrifice logic and series values to appeal to those players as a priority - vehicles don't feel great and they don't work effectively on the smaller style maps - maps are too compact, linear, mostly urban, lack elevation and play too similarly - the squad system may as well not exist from a tactical or strategic standpoint - sniper glint may need to be toned down - classes are plied with too many weapons and gear that completely devalue choice and impact - destruction looks impressive but it doesn't radically change anything and is inconsistent (the upcoming new beta map has huge issues with the latter apparently) The class system needs a total overhaul IMO - the fact Assault can carry a primary, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, flashbangs, a deployable shield grenades and a stim is just ridiculous and almost Treyarch levels of generosity. This devalues the class choice completely and makes you stupidly overpowered. Also sod the shield and stim - that bollocks belongs in COD. Knee sliding and and tac sprint was rejected so not sure why the stim made it. The shield is acceptable I guess. I don't think any Battlefield or FPS fan wanted something fresh - they just wanted Battlefield back i.e 2,3 and 4 especially after the disappointments of BFV and 2042. BF6 achieves that to a degree, but then let's itself down with some questionable design and strange conceptual choices. This is also what happens every time with Battlefield - Call of Duty fucks up spectacularly and then Battlefield fails to capitalise with some surprise errors and misses an open goal. Everyone then leaves Battlefield after a month and returns to COD irrespective of how garbage it is that year. Whilst it's great to see how far the game and series has come under the new leadership in such a short space of time, it would be very disappointing to see the game make easily avoidable mistakes and brainless design choices like 2042 did. The community have spent well over a year helping build BF6 and this is off of 3 years of relentless feedback on 2042 so when the developers go against the grain and dominant advice, it can alienate the community a lot worse than if it was just bad independent choices.

I have no words I thought this was an AI fake picture but apparently it is 100% real.

Yep, after all, it's carefully constructed and valid criticism from the Battlefield community which is why this game even exists. Had the community not salvaged 2042 for 3 years straight, the entire Battlefield brand would be dead by now. Let's also not forget back in 2014 when the community saved Battlefield 4 after at the time, the worst launch in videogame history bar none, so criticism is absolutely critical going forward. Whilst not much can be done at this stage in regards to some of the design choices as the maps are already finished, it is good to get on paper what people may want to see in the future. For instance, it doesn't look like we're getting a water map which is almost criminal🤣 If we end up doing what Treyarch did to COD, every map will start shrinking and they'll make decisions based on data and not logic. Gotta keep everyone happy and not just the COD incomers who are already demanding battle passes and e-sports!

Yes but you've completely missed the point of everything said. Spawning on a flag you've captured when the next flag is just 30 seconds away in BF6 is a world of difference than what we've seen previous whereby you don't need to apply any forwarding tactical strategy or squad teamwork whatsoever. The squad system has been completely obliterated since 2042 and the developers still don't understand the core design philosophy that made it so pivotal in the likes of 2, 3, 4, 1 and V. There's no consequence to squad wipes or any territorial focuses when the maps are this compact. Conquest on Cairo and Iberia is practically domination as it is, and breakthrough is an unbalanced shambles. Spawn beacons are pointless now because unless you play them as a tac-insert for yourself, you literally just save yourself 15 seconds and create self-inflicted chokepoint that the opposition can sit on. These in old Battlefield games were critical to maintain a territorial push in a safe haven when spawning with the squad was risky. Now they are nothing more than a Call of Duty tactical insertion. This is why small linear shoebox maps don't work well. Metro and Locker do because they were meticulously designed but here they've just created a layout and prioritised destruction.

People don't seem to bother with issuing orders now and I don't see the point either. You could literally free for all from any flag and it wouldn't make a difference whereas in the older BF games, you relied on working as a squad, pushing the flag the squad leader assigned, using beacons and also ensuring you don't get wiped because the set-back consequences were dire. Here if you get wiped, you choose any flag you want and then go left, right centre and chances are you'll be contesting a flag with others regardless in less than a minute. I don't even need to pull the map up mid-game anymore because all I have to do is focus on the flag icon that appears on the interface and that tells me all I need to know along with all the other x-rayed UI features. Just feels soulless and cheap this way.

Battlefield 6 beta

New year, same old bollocks. Their PR team surely have exhausted all their terminologies by now!

I never played anything else other than conquest in Battlefield games. Flag to flag on Cairo is no more than 30 seconds on foot and the same can be said for Iberia. The liberation snow one, which is probably the biggest, is still really condensed and there is only two ways to get to the inner flags pretty much so it feels restrictive in that sense too. There is no territorial penalties for squad wipes either because all you need to do is spawn to the nearest flag and the radius is so big, chances are you are 30 seconds off where you want to be anyway. The maps just feel way too compact and the action is boxed-in. Vehicles have no room to breathe in Cairo and Iberia, and you can literally sit on a blind chokepoints in a tank rattle off 40+ kills with ease half the time. Even the smaller maps on BFV like Provence, Soloman Islands, Devastation, Operation Underground and Marita offer reasonable scale and plenty of room for territorial-focused gameplay. Here, there is no consequence to losing any flag because chances are you are within distance of getting one back instantly. I got 13 captures on my last match and I joined halfway through.

Battlefield trailers are always 'carnage' but the series at its core is a grand FPS with tactical elements. There is no semblance of this in the game - it's just overly-chaotic action on very small maps where flags change hands easily and territory doesn't matter because you can be easily swarmed left, right and centre. They've appealed to the Call of Duty players at the expense of Battlefield's core values and have concocted this middle-ground type of game and I'm just not sure about it. The bigger maps will probably play better like Operation Firestorm but the ones we have in the beta are just too small, chokepoint-laden and offer absolutely no tactical flexibility or POI.

I just played on the Cairo map and although it was a better experience i.e flags not changing hands every 20 seconds, it was ridiculously chaotic. Every time I spawned in, it took me some time just to get my bearings on where I was, what direction I was facing and where to head next. Every part of the map looks the same and even knowing where you are going to spawn, you still can't work out where you actually end up. A quick tip is to go into the options and disable film grain, chromatic aberration, motion blur, weapon motion blur and vignette because those are all enabled by default and make the game look absolutely horrific even at max settings. You will still have to put up with all the rubble and trees but at least the image will be a bit clearer and cleaner.

Played a few matches just now and the game is a complete mess. The maps are far too small and the action is way too chaotic. It doesn't matter how refined your game is or how pretty it looks; if it is this borked by design then you've fucked it basically. At no point tonight did I ever feel like I was participating in a tactically-driven and closely-knit squad - everything was just a nonsensical free for all and it's not a case of it being a new game or with inexperienced players - the way it is designed leads to this outcome every bloody minute. There are no safe spawns, no way to play logically - you spawn and then pick a flank to run in and just pray you don't get shot front, back or sides. Capture points change hands far too often and it's too easy to hop on and challenge. It literally plays like a game of COD domination but with 5 flags. One of the smaller maps on BF4 was Operation Locker and that was fantastic because matches flowed and even in tight chokepoints, you were always playing a territorial battle. This game has no semblance of strategy and now that EA's sponsorship deals with streamers is over, maybe we'll get some honesty. They've put destruction ahead of everything else and missed the entire point of what makes a Battlefield game. The same bad decisions 2042 made persist here but in a different form yet there is over a decade of proven gameplay concepts that they just cannot seem to recreate or understand. I'll have another go tomorrow but I am not impressed at all.

I primarily played Heretic but from what I remember about Hexen, it was similar but much harder and had some very complex maps. I think this remastered version actually includes hints and waypoints it's that tough!

This is brilliant! Heretic and Hexen have been given the Doom + Doom II remastered treatment by Nightdive Studios providing QoL improvements along with modern enhancements including a remastered soundtrack. The game is FREE to existing owners of the first two games on PC and also now available on console.

I haven't played the game yet as I don't have early access although I did try the shooting range just to see how it felt. I also managed to catch some gameplay videos and I just cannot shake off the feeling about the maps being off. There doesn't seem to be any landmarks and they look really compact and just too chaotic. Even the snow map looks a lot smaller than the environment would suggest plus it's clear that one has a nightmare issue with spawns and balance. It looks incredibly refined but if the scale and vehicle balance is off then it could lead to a torrid experience. If there is not much room for strategic play and it becomes a chaotic state of destruction and spam, then it will be very disappointing irrespective of how good it looks and feels. They do not want to be in the same position like they were in 2042 where maps had to be reworked entirely and balance was all over the shop. Vince Zampella has done fine job but I just wonder if he has too much Call of Duty in him to create an independent Battlefield game without borrowing too many design philosophies. I get they want to attract as many COD players as possible as they ambitiously target 100m users but they can't alienate the core Battlefield community which is already big enough when they actually get the game right in the first instance.

Anyone bought into the Edge of Fate expansion yet? I was a bit apprehensive after seeing all the early negative feedback but I decided to at least give the introductory mission a shot regardless, and I am not impressed at all. I actually found it a very mediocre experience especially with the lame Metroid Prime rip-off gameplay. The story seems boring and the writing standard is extremely poor. Coming off the back of Neptune and the Pale Heart, the location also looks extremely underwhelming. Sorry Bungie but the platforming aspects are shite and I don't think I can bare doing any more of that spark nonsense again.

Modern Warfare 2019 - such a refined experience and it's a travesty what the franchise has become. This was the second chance and they blew it.

Call of Duty players (influencers mostly) are already trying to ruin this game - literally some are already crying for a competitive ladder and others think the Battle Royale mode should be prioritised. I honestly can't wait for Black Ops 7 and hopefully most of them will go. It's clearly many of them have never played Battlefield before or don't understand it. Not needing the EA app for this game is fantastic news! They'll probably gain a million players for this alone.

I remember he once twisted his ankle getting off the coach for a friendly🤣

Cheers Phil! Wasn't showing up in the search for some reason. Can't believe I never got around to playing this game but it looks like they've done a fine job and got it to release very swiftly indeed.

Son is big but he's not bigger than Darren Anderton🤣