The recent Battlefield 6 open beta was a massive success for EA and Battlefield Studios, amassing over half a million concurrent players on Steam. But some players weren’t happy about how fast and jumpy movement could be in the online FPS, and others felt the shotgun was too powerful. Now EA has announced that hopping around with a shotty won’t be as effective in the full game.
On August 21, EA and Battlefield Studios published a lengthy community update on Twitter going over what was learned from the beta and what will be changed when the full game launches in October. The big news for many will be that, yes, the devs working on BF6 saw some of those wild videos of players hopping, sliding, and diving around in matches like it’s a modern Call of Duty game and have plans to nerf how fast you slide and how often you can jump.
“Movement mechanics have been adjusted to create a more balanced and traditional Battlefield experience,” said EA in the community update post. “Momentum, especially horizontal speed, carried from a slide into a jump has been reduced. There is now a greater penalty for consecutive jumps, which lowers jump height when jumps are spammed. Firing while jumping or sliding will result in increased inaccuracy.”
According to the devs, the idea behind these changes is to make jumping and sliding “more situational” and less useful during gunfights, with EA adding that it wants to reward “skillful movement” but doesn’t want gameplay to become “too fast or unpredictable.”
The shotgun in Battlefield 6 is being nerfed
Another complaint out of the Battlefield 6 open beta was that the shotgun carried by assault class players was too powerful. As someone who loved using the shotgun, I disagree entirely and think people need to shut up. But the data does show that the shotgun was very effective at killing people. Maybe too effective? EA thinks so and is nerfing it a bit, explaining: “The M87A1 shotgun now requires more pellets to secure a kill.” So it will still be good up close, but won’t be the powerhouse at medium range like it was in the beta.
©EA
Other weapon tweaks include a “general pass on recoil” and tap-firing across all weapons. EA wants to emphasize each gun’s “unique feel” and make sure weapons have more varied effective ranges. “We’ve also made changes to encourage more controlled tap-firing and burst-firing, rewarding precision and weapon mastery,” said the team.
And EA is “investigating the Time-to-Kill and Time-to-Death experiences” in BF6, but doesn’t have any “definitive” plans yet. Personally, I think people were being weird about time-to-kill in BF6‘s beta, as it is about the same as it was in BF4. But I do agree that sometimes you’d die instantly, and it felt like only one shot. I assume this is down to some network issues that need to be fixed.
Player counts, Rush changes, and more
Elsewhere in the community update, Battlefield Studios talked more about player counts and how they work in BF6. The devs say the number of players in a match isn’t strictly dictated by the mode, but the scale of the map. For example, at launch, some Breakthrough maps will support 48 players, while others will support 64 players. It’s an interesting strategy that lets the devs use every map for every mode, even if it means upping or lowering the maximum number of players that can get in on the action.
EA also talked about Rush and how the more players you add to the mode, the harder it becomes for one side to win. So, based on player feedback from the beta, EA is lowering the default number of players in Rush in the full game in October to give attackers a better chance of winning. Hopefully, the studio also changes where players spawn and how close the objectives are in Rush to help make matches more fun and less of a slog.
Oh, and for players who are part of BF Labs, you’ll get a chance to test out some of the bigger maps coming to BF6 at launch, including the remake of BF3‘s beloved Operation Firestorm. EA confirmed that these two maps will “include the full complement of vehicles…along with a more vast combat space.” So you can stop yelling at EA and Battlefield 6 devs about bigger maps. They’ve told you before and now have explained again: Bigger maps will be in the full game. Relax, okay?
Battlefield 6 launches on October 10 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
