Battlefield 6’s open beta may be over, Battlefield 2042 might also have been transformed into Battlefield 6, but there must be more battles in the fields of six, so sign-ups for another round of Labs testing are now open. Two fresh maps with plenty of room for vehicle-based fisticuffs will be on offer, as well as a chance to check out the server browser that may well be chock full of 24/7 scraps once the final game launches.
EA have wheeled out all of this info in two separate blog posts, which follow neatly on from them running down all of their learnings from the open beta.
First of all, the two maps. Operation Firestorm and Mirak Valley are set to debut, and if you were among the many miffed at the open beta largely sticking to smaller maps, you’ll be glad to hear that they facilitate larger scraps with “a diverse range of vehicles, from quad bikes to tanks and aircraft”.
As you might expect, their inclusion’s part of EA working to ensure “balancing occurs across different-sized environments” following the open beta. “Improvements to weapons, large-scale vehicular combat, gadget balancing, and more” are all on the publisher’s radar to monitor and tweak. This round of testing’ll also be used to lock in “the official setting for Hardcore mode”, so put on your best killing pants.
If you hop into this latest Labs test, you’ll also get your first chance to muck around with a work-in-progress version of Battlefield 6’s server browser. Its features will be “intentionally limited” so EA can focus on making sure it’s stable and useable at a basic level. Basically, making sure folks can set up a server via a shortcode, fill out its description and tags, then host away trouble-free as other players join and leave.
Those who’ve grown up jumping into 24/7 servers that serve you one map on repeat and don’t disappear when everyone goes to bed at the end of the first day will be glad to know EA have confirmed custom servers will be persistent. It won’t cost you any extra over the base price of the FPS either, which is a nice bit of non-money-grabbing from EA, and should mean Battlefield 6 has less trouble establishing a strong sense of community out of the gate.
If you’ve not taken part in any Battlefield 6 Labs tests to this point, you can head here to sign up. Though, there’s no guarantee you’ll be granted access either right away or at all, as the spots are much more limted than the open beta.