After making it past level 100 over the course of 170 hours with the game, what would a Battlefield 6 player like me be looking for? The answer: more.
As with any live-service game, the key to maintaining interest is fresh content. Now, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t happily play rounds of Escalation on Eastwood until the last star flickers out of existence, but there’s nothing quite like stepping onto a new map with a new weapon. As Battlefield 6’s first season comes to a close, we look forward to what comes next. Ahead of today’s launch of Battlefield 6 – Season 2, we sat down with Battlefield Studios Associate Producer Kit Eklöf to chat about what the team has learnt, what we should look forward to, and what the hell I’m supposed to do about the Little Bird helicopter tearing me apart.
WellPlayed: From a conceptual level, what was the team looking to bring to the game with the content in Season 2?
Kit Eklöf: We want to bring a lot of excitement and fresh ideas into the game. Something new for players to play and enjoy, and a little innovation as well. We’ve been trying to get all the content we want into the season, and that’s also part of why we extended the launch. To just get all of the stuff in there. It’s about getting an exciting new map and mode together, new weapons, new vehicles, get the new Battle Pass together. So yeah, we’re checking all the boxes with this season.
WP: Can you tell me some of the lessons that the team learned from Season 1, both in terms of the content offering and the rollout of that content?
KE: Yeah, I think it’s about how you want to structure a season. What’s important? What type of content do you want in there? We definitely listened to the players and the feedback we got. So, as I said, [feedback] was part of why it took a little bit longer to get Season 2 out. Because we wanted to get a few things right and get the right content in there. [We wanted to] bring more verticality to the map, and we have a bunch of fixes coming out that you can read about in the patch notes when it comes to hit registration and when it comes to the weapon gameplay, because there’s nothing more important than the gameplay and the shooting experience, right? We’ve really invested in that and looked at the feedback, both from the live game and from things we tried in [Battlefield] Labs, since we get some feedback there, which is really great in helping us get things right.
Of course, there are a lot of small things as well, but those are the big things I would take from Season 1, and how we wanted to adjust and make them even better in Season 2.
WP: On the topic of feedback, these content drops require a lot of forward planning. How does the team leverage player feedback when it conflicts with the current plan? For instance, players are calling for larger maps and maps with aquatic elements.
I’m a producer on the hardware team, so I’m mostly focused on weapons, gadgets, and vehicles, so I’ll answer your question from that perspective.
The scout helicopter is one, for example, where we’ve seen plenty of feedback about how effective it is against infantry. When we see that feedback, when it gets tested in Labs, we discuss it with the team and make some adjustments. Most of the time, it’s a little tweak here and there, but overall, the goal with the scout helicopter is to be a glass cannon. It’s also inspired by the previous versions from Battlefield 3 and 4, so we want to take the best parts of those.
We want it to be the helicopter that takes the least damage, but it also needs to be very maneuverable. So we have something that feels right, but we need to release to see how our players can take down the scout helicopter. Because, as I said, the feedback is that it’s really effective against infantry, but we also think that when players get more time with it, they’re going to learn how to deal with it as well. So sometimes you need to say, “Let’s try this and see how it goes.” Also, we can tweak some of those values on the fly; we don’t need a patch to do it. From a vehicle perspective, that’s how I take on the feedback we get.
Now, when it comes to maps. We hear the feedback loud and clear, as you said, on the larger maps. Maps start very early in development. So sometimes it’s hard to go back too far and change things. But we are able to course correct if we need to do something. The new map, Contaminated, is a big map, and it has lots of verticality, which is different from Eastwood and Blackwood Fields. So it does add something that some players thought was missing in those maps. We also hear feedback that some vehicles aren’t working well on some maps. So that’s something we can go in and address and say, “Hey, last time, we got feedback that some of the vehicles weren’t optimised for this map. So, can we make sure that the vehicles we have on this map now better fit in with the environment?” Like, the scouthelicopter, and [Contaminated’s] verticality, for example.
WP: Mentioning the Little Bird scout helicopter, that thing is an absolute menace. I went hands-on with new content last night and was constantly getting turned into mince by this one ace pilot. Have you seen people pull off any ridiculous feats with the Little Bird during internal testing or in Labs?
KE: Yeah, some people are just that good. It’s fortunate that there aren’t many of those people, but whenever you get a pilot like that in the game, it’s really, really tough. But you can also shoot it with your regular weapon, so anyone can deal damage to the Little Bird. I think you’re going to figure out, eventually, how to take it down, even if it’s a really good pilot. But the thing is, it really rewards a skilled pilot because it’s so maneuverable, and it’s supposed to get in, get out, then be away for a while, then get back in. You can survive for a really long time if you play it that way, but you wouldn’t be able to just sustain damage even if you’re a skilled pilot.
But yeah, I’ve seen some crazy maneuvers. Lots of flying in really narrow spaces on Contaminated. I’ve also seen it in Brooklyn, because we’re also bringing it into that map. We always wanted to have that helicopter on that map, so we’re bringing it back to that one, and I think we’re going to see some really cool things happening there as well.
Most of the time, when it gets into the hands of the players, we get the cinematic moments. A lot more than in the internal play tests. So you guys are the real superstars flying these things.
WP: So the Little Bird will be available on the Contaminated and Empire State maps. Will it be restricted to those two for this season, or are you looking to bring it to more maps?
Yeah, we’re actually adding it to all of the larger maps. So you’ll be able to play it on [Operation] Firestorm, for example.
WP: Another new addition I got to test out was the VL-7 Strike limited-time mode, where psychoactive smoke would surround certain control points, causing hallucinations. What was the team looking to achieve with this gameplay effect? For instance, I noticed that players couldn’t camp on those points, forcing them to be more mobile.
KE: The main goal, I would say, is to slow down combat a little bit. That’s also been part of the feedback we got: “It’s so fast.” So we looked at that [and thought] “What mechanics can we play with?” We also looked into the TTK (time to kill) from a weapons perspective, of course, but what can we do to slow the game down a bit? And the team came up with the psychoactive smoke, which is also interesting because we’ve had smoke in Battlefield before, and some players didn’t like it and found it annoying.
So it was a challenge for the team. “How can we make it more interesting this time?” The hallucination aspect is the innovation that the team came up with. But yeah, we hope it’s going to slow the pace a little bit and make you think more tactically about how you approach each area and the map. It appears in different places, so it adds a little bit of a change from round to round. Ultimately, that’s what we want to achieve with it.
WP: Were there any gas effects that were prototyped and fun, but had to be left on the cutting-room floor?
KE: I just saw one thing that I want to tell you about. Someone cut an image of the long-necked bug into the smoke, and it looked hilarious.
WP: Thank you so much for your time, Kit. I really appreciate it.
KE: Thank you.
We spent two hours with the first batch of content from Battlefield 6 – Season 2, so head over to our hands-on preview to hear about our experiences with the new map, mode, weapons, and hellish new aerial vehicle.
Battlefield 6 – Season 2 kicks off on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC today.
