Battlefield 6 Campaign Review: An enjoyable but bumpy ride

The Battlefield 6 beta impressed during its open beta tests. But while that sneak peek of multiplayer joy was encouraging, I had reservations about the campaign. After all, that aspect of EA’s big FPS reportedly didn’t make May 2025’s Alpha code target. In fact, the campaign was allegedly rebuilt after the original studio working on it, Ridgeline, was closed.

Yet with the campaign needing to deliver an enjoyable backdrop to engaging multiplayer maelstrom (and a core linchpin of BF6’s triple-A status), there’s a lot on the line. Further, if you need to account for every bit of value in spending $70, then the 5-6 hours of cinema-esque campaign matters. How did the Battlefield 6 campaign shake out? 

The Escapist recaps

• The Battlefield 6 campaign is largely enjoyable, but not without graphical issues in our playthrough.
• A varied and gorgeous world is backed by intense action and set-pieces.
• While not groundbreaking, the plot does keep you guessing and delivers decent character performances.
• As a prelude to multiplayer, guns, gadgets, and vehicles are used well to bolster action and provide familiarity.

Plot and world-building

We already knew that the Battlefield 6 release date would bring a campaign with a story featuring a shattered NATO and a private military organization named Pax Armata. The plotline does well to pair this story with the intense action gamers crave. All the while, the characters of the Dagger 1-3 US Marine Raider unit provide a solid emotional crux to the action.

The nine missions featuring Dagger 1-3 work well to establish characters, identify individual traits, and motivations. Then there’s a nice play with the larger events, as those characters wrestle to withstand stark situations. Meanwhile, the ‘big bad’ enemy, ‘Kincaid’, delivers on classic enemy tropes while asking some testing questions, which is a nice box to check. 

There are a couple of narrative rug-pulls here, and the story progression is satisfying, with the greatest illumination of all delivered by the world itself. Reflecting the nine multiplayer maps, some of which we saw during the Battlefield 6 open beta, the locations are immersive and well-crafted. BF6 may have no Ray Tracing, but locales are well-lit and expertly staged. 

Gameplay and Immersion

It’s these locations that lay the framework for a rewarding level of immersion throughout Battlefield 6’s campaign. We previously covered some of our campaign hopes, and immersion was naturally a key part. There are some technical issues (below), but the spectacles delivered, from Georgia to Gibraltar, Cairo, Brooklyn, and more, are praiseworthy.

Several times, I actually caught myself looking around at the mission environment, admiring the view rather than focusing on my task. This got me killed, but it was worth it. The detail and direction of the missions were largely enjoyable, too, and that’s what we game for. But what about the action? There’s plenty of that.

Of the four difficulty settings (Recruit, Regular, Veteran, and Hardcore), I opted for Veteran and wasn’t disappointed. Not only were gunfights and encounters intense and gleefully challenging, but the campaign produced a feeling of nerves-on-end joy. Not to mention more than a few catch-your-breath moments, even while being a typically ‘on rails’ ride.

Multiplayer Tune-up

To be fair, the campaign of a triple-A title has a lot to achieve. One of those tasks is to reflect the wider Battlefield 6 gameplay beyond the story. The BF6 campaign absolutely nails this, providing hands-on opportunities for a wide range of weapons, gadgets, and vehicles. This means that when I switched over to multiplayer, I felt far more at home, even as a Battlefield fan.

The tune-up of mechanical skills that the campaign mode offers is solid, particularly on harder settings. But beyond the shooting of various guns, there’s the introduction to the rapid joy of vehicles. Jeep chases, tank battles, ATV rides, and, although you don’t fly them, helicopters and jets feature. All of this helps build a valid and viable multiplayer world.

What you end up with is several hours of a campaign that takes you on a solid, escape-worthy journey, with mixed PVE experiences that deliver a fitting training ground. Once the outright destruction and team-based fun arrived, for me, multiplayer locations echoed the images of a memorable campaign. 

Distracting Issues

A lot has been done well, and while not a masterclass in storytelling, the campaign delivers fine levels of traditional FPS fun. However, I did spot a few issues that worked to dissolve my immersion. A glitching, vibrating, soldier sitting in an aircraft waiting to skydive, a floating coil of cable, a dead Pax Armata soldier jumping around the floor, sliding ‘walking’ characters.

These weren’t the only issues, either. A glitching dashboard in a jeep, blocky smoke billowing from an AMTRAC, my Dagger 1-3 mission character being stuck under a vehicle before being catapulted into the sky. Oh, and one specific cinematic felt a little blurry or not quite optimised. All of these felt like a shame to experience.

Whether or not such issues are the outcome of the campaign’s allegedly lagging behind the development of multiplayer, we can’t know. However, I hope that optimisations and subsequent patches help to fix these issues. One top tip from me, too: captions are useful because the dialogue audio isn’t always clear, and it helps during the action.

Final Thoughts

So, how does the Battlefield 6 campaign shake out? I really enjoyed it, and will likely play through again. Hardcore difficulty next time? I think so, and because I was so focused on the story, I missed the option to find all but one of the 30 collectibles. 

But while having the urge to play it again is good, it’s not quite a no-brainer. It’s refreshing to enjoy a campaign so much in a multiplayer focused game. The death of the single player story campaign has been greatly exaggerated – and they are back in full force in Battlefield 6.

Unless optimisations emerge, I will likely face some of the glitches I’ve outlined above, which is far from ideal when spending at least $70 on a title. Looking past those, the story, the world, the gameplay, and the action combine to produce a fun, largely impressive, and intriguing episode to enjoy away from the leaderboards and unlock progression.

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