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Battlefield 6 was a massive return to form, but the launch of the free-to-play Battle Royale mode, RedSec, has the community completely divided. We were promised a gritty, grounded shooter, but RedSec is facing backlash for its similarities to Call of Duty War Zone.
We break down the controversy, including why the single biggest map is in the free-to-play mode, why progression is tied to playing RedSec, and the overall push toward a live service model. Is this just EA trying to force long-term recurrent spending? The Battlefield community is not happy.
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Battlefield 6 seemed a little bit too good to be true, and maybe now it is
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If you've seen the ongoing controversy around Battlefield RedSec, then let's dive into some of the details as to why the Battlefield community are so divided
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over this free-to-play Battle Royale addition to Battlefield 6. Now, RedSec is the name for Battlefield's add-on game
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It just got shadow-dropped on October 28th. I guess various insiders knew that it was going to happen
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But yeah, I didn't really realize what this thing was until it was at the PlayStation trending sale
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the trending charts anyway and um you know it's had a massive initial reaction over 500,000 players
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on steam um you know joining battlefield 6's overall positive reception you know that thing
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sold over 7 million units in the first three days a massive return to form for the ip overall
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and because if we're talking about battle royale and we're talking about battlefield you can go
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back to battlefield 5 at the end of 2018 uh november 2018 and that game getting a battle royale mode in
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march 2019 many months after and the game had uh you know kind of came and went battlefield 5 was a
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bit more of a divisive release overall back then and so still you know overall bf6 doing very well
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and a part of the run-up to launch was this whole positioning of the game as something that call of
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duty wasn't it was just going to be this you know way more serious gritty you know a return to boots
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on the ground gameplay and nothing you know over the top in regards to the destruction but it wasn't
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going to have over the top skins it wasn't going to have a focus on call of duty warzone it wasn't
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going to have all that kind of stuff you even have had specific quotes um from um ea's technical
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director or dice's technical director uh christian bull talking to ign in september and saying that
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you know they're building a gritty grounded realistic shooter that's what we intend to be and that's what the game is going to look like for a while and that is now in up for grabs in
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regards to what battlefield redsec represents because it seems like a lot more focus is being
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put into this ongoing, you know, multiplayer platform Battle Royale free to play than Battlefield
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6 itself. And fans are mixed as to the way that things are rolling out. RedSec itself did also
1:58
have various bugs and server dropouts when it launched. That's likely just because of the amount of people that were playing it And there also the fact that you know they didn really talk that much about the idea of a Battle Royale mode being plugged into Battlefield 6 which a lot of people do just run for the hills when they hear about Battle Royales I just you know that genre that mode has kind of come and gone to a degree
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But obviously Call of Duty Warzone is still one of the biggest names in the game. And as we'll talk about, it seems like EA were forever wanting to, you know, do the comparisons
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have Battlefield RedSec in that conversation alongside Call of Duty Warzone, even though for the most part in the marketing and the run-up to launch it was all hey look we're
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focusing on you know the multiplayer the campaign we're not going to do this forever ongoing live
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service component which now they do have a lot of people who are playing red sex say that the
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general feel when it comes to you know moving through the map hoovering up the loot engaging
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with other players that that does just remind them of call of duty war zone and it's strange
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timing because this year call of duty isn't doing very well like the the player numbers in regards
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to Black Ops 7's early access, the beta, it peaked at like 75,000 players
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whereas Battlefield 6 had something like half a million. Like, Battlefield is absolutely dog-walking
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Call of Duty this year. Even though if you go down the specifics of different packages that you can pre-order
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Call of Duty is still doing strong enough, but it still feels like it's Battlefield's year
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Like, the general response to Black Ops 7, you know, during the summer game first, was pretty damn negative
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And like I said, everything, the runway is clear for Battlefield to do very well
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and it had done in the run-up to launch. But as I say, people playing Red Sox say that there's a lot of Warzone comparisons in here, even though the reality of development time means that there's no way that EA could have predicted or DICE could have predicted that Black Ops wasn't going to go down too well in this particular year
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still it's a shame on the battlefield side to get a main game that is so distinct and is such a
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return to form only for the plugged in free-to-play battle royale component to be so reminiscent of
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the thing that so many people are so vehemently against in regards to you know war zone and the
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way the call of duty handles its battle royale and to get more specific a lot of fans saying that
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you know the map size in the red sec map is so much bigger than anything that's in the battlefield
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six main game which is obviously the premium game that a lot of people have paid for and that comes
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off the beta around Battlefield being talked about as being disappointing because they didn launch or they didn test out the bigger maps which meant the fan base had to kind of lean back on like well I sure it be fine come launch And there are bigger maps in there compared to what was in the beta But still
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the biggest map that you can see in regards to, you know, Battlefield 6, the newest era of
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Battlefield is in the Battle Royale. And that's just a bit of another blow. Like, and also the
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fact that it's free to play, you can kind of just hang back, play the free to play, you know
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red sec version of battlefield and have a fun enough time have something closer to a battlefield
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experience all the vehicles are in there you can squad up with your friends you can have you can
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have a battlefield in the online in the free-to-play component in a way that you arguably can't um in a
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lot of the matches in the standard modes the grounded stuff the conquest that kind of thing in the standard battlefield 6 which is another reason why um the game is being so negatively
4:59
received and why it's being completely review bombed over on steam the console side of things
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is a little bit more positive but we still have a general conversation around where was the focus
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in development and why wasn't this talked about more and why is there you know such a a weird push
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towards this battle royale live service component when a lot of from the fan perspective you know
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they thought that they finally realized what the hell they should deliver and it is one of those
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um you know it was too good to be true things because we always knew ea were on the publishing
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side and they were not just going to put so much money into a um you know the single player story
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mode and then the online multiplayer thing without plugging in a whole bunch of micro transactions
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and different ways to get recurrent spending methods going forward. It's worth just pointing out that that conversation around the map size
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you know, the idea that the biggest map, the most identifiable style of Battlefield gameplay
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is in the free-to-play Battle Royale mode. Is that just a way to get, you know, established Battlefield players
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who were looking for bigger maps and bigger interactive, you know, gunfights and more over-the-top interactions with other players
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Is that just a way to get them to play the Battle Royale mode no matter what? One of the main things that is peeing the fanbase off royally
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is that a lot of the progression in Battlefield 6 is fundamentally tied to RedSec
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Now, there are ways that you can grind out a lot of the weekly challenges within Battlefield 6
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but a lot of the more speed boosts and the more efficient ways of getting through your challenges
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it forces you into the Battle Royale mode It forces you to you know take part in a mode that likely not what you bought Battlefield 6 for I seen that um you know literally mentioned over in a headline on windows central and that a lot of people already paid the premium price point to get the new battlefield and now
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they're being asked to play this free to play spin-off mode that isn't why they showed up in the first place and isn't what ea slash dice were profiling in the run-up to launch either
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um it is just you know it brings up that whole conversation on that idea of you know one of the
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biggest maps in battlefield history is locked to this battle royale mode at least for now
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And is that just a way of getting established veteran battlefield players who thought they knew what they were getting over into the Battle Royale
6:55
Because that's where they can try and tempt you with different skins and different recurrent spending methods
6:59
And is that the actual play? That feels like something more akin to what EA is known for
7:04
And I wouldn't put it past them. The last thing to touch upon is just the idea of the skins and the general presentation of this Battle Royale mode
7:12
There's already been a bit of a controversy around a skin that was too green
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It was too hyper-colored. And it was toned down with the release of RedSec and the season one update for Battlefield
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And with a lot of fans saying, oh, at least they listened. They didn't stick to this more over-the-top neon skin that you could get in the game
7:28
I think it's called like Ground Zero or something. But it's part of that conversation which DICE waved into, you know, in the run-up to launch
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saying that they're not going to be having over-the-top skins and over-the-top presentation
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They're going to be doing something that is more in line with, you know, being a gritty return to what Battlefield is known for
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and obviously they were referencing without saying it specifically call of duty warzone and a lot of
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the ridiculous over-the-top skins that that mode that game has had added to it whether it's nikki
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minaj or you know king kong and godzilla or whatever um people just want a stock you know
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more realistic more authentic military fps it's why something like ready or not has blown the hell up
8:04
across this year and even why something like hell divers 2 has done so well even though obviously
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it's more of a it's a sci-fi game it still has realistic shooting and it's not surprising you
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with the add-ons every other month in regards to what gets put in the official store
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that you're just expected to factor into the canon of the thing that you're playing
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But yeah, in regards to Battlefield, it's so good. It's so well handled for the most part
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But sadly, we do have all the Red Sox stuff to throw alongside
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which is muddying the waters to say the least
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