Battlefield 2042 supported 128 player matches at launch in 2021. Battlefield 6 will support 64 player matches, when it launches on 10th October this year. Some mistake here, surely? Battlefield 6 is a sequel to Battlefield 2042, and sequels are supposed to have More. If I have just given voice to your innermost thoughts, then I fear it is time to bamboozle and horrify you with the nightmare-physics of the arcane game design proverb, “sometimes, less is more”.
“But how can this be?” you shriek, as the ground crumbles and the walls peel away. Matter cannot increase and decrease simultaneously! A “+1” cannot be a “-1”! You reach for the whiskey bottle in a frenzy, but it is too late to unlearn this awful knowledge. Anyway, stop screaming so I can treat you to another morsel of insight from Battlefield 6 design director Shashank Uchil. I promise this one won’t hurt quite as much.
“We thought larger player numbers would work – it just didn’t catch on,” Uchil said to Edge Magazine in recent reflections about Battlefield 2042’s higher headcount, as passed along by the magazine’s jovial e-buddies at Gamesradar.
“It’s like when a band tries a new sound,” Uchil continued. “Because we like it, but then players don’t – and in the end, we are subservient to the players. We do what the players want.” I feel “subservient” is perhaps a bit much, Mr Uchil. Please do not encourage your players to think that they’re pharaohs. How many pyramids did the pharaohs build, all by themselves? Exactly.
As digested by GR, Uchil added that “Battlefield players are very vocal” and will “tell you what they want” as regards the new shooter. Definite deer-in-headlight vibes. The devs “all read the Reddit,” Uchil added, because it’s “the number-one source, and all of us are on there.” All of which continues the well-established EA marketing theme of trying to get 2042 haters on-board with Battlefield 6, which is designed to evoke the better moments of Battlefield 3.
I like thinking about how many players is too much in first-person shooters. The question of player count is obviously part of a larger set of questions about map design and size, mode design, weapon balancing, and so forth. Generally speaking, when I’m pinned down by a bombardment in a Battlefield game, it absolutely feels like there are 127 other players out there, because those artillery impacts are so very loud.
By contrast, I remember playing Resistance 2 on PlayStation 3, which boasted then-mindblowing 60 player headcounts, and finding that the flagship multiplayer mode’s objective structure had the effect of making it feel like a bunch of asynchronous deathmatches. We’d pass queues of enemy players hurrying in the other direction and just sort of wave acknowledgement, like passing bus drivers.
Back in 2021, Ed Thorn (RPS in peace) had similar thoughts about Battlefield 2042. He found that it rarely felt like a 128-player game at all. “I’m not sure I notice the bump in bodies,” Ed wrote in his review. “Sure, things are chaotic, but the maps are so vast to make up for it that the pockets of violence remain similar to previous, smaller entries in the series.”
The obvious tentpole game to invoke here is Planetside 2, proudest of the surviving MMO shooters. I had a go at unravelling PlanetSide 2’s accomplishment in January 2024. Amongst other things, I argued that the vast periphery of each emergent battle makes for a surprisingly good walking simulator. But enough of my wittering. How many players do you consider too many players, inasmuch as such things can be interpreted out of context?