Battlefield 6 Season 4 proves that sometimes size really does matter
I played three hours of Battlefield 6 Season 4 ahead of its launch on July 21. Here's why its new largest map is also one of its best.
It feels like every time we get a new Battlefield game, it goes through similar emotional waves. The game launches, and there’s that initial moment of hype scratching a previously insatiable itch – to quote my own review last year, ‘Battlefield is so back’.
That high lasts a few weeks before the cracks start to show. Maybe some balancing issues rear their head, or a lack of live service runways sees players fall away to other distractions. Before long, we’re overanalysing a fall in player numbers while we ponder whether DICE and its support studios will even get a chance to put new content in front of players.
Right now, it feels like we’re in that stage with Battlefield 6. Nine months on from launch, daily players on Steam have settled at around 60,000 – an admirable number, but a far cry from the 100 million players EA was reportedly hoping for ahead of launch.
There often comes a point in a Battlefield game’s lifecycle, though, when the balance tips. The team at the wheel finds its groove, catches up with feature requests of players and the initial vision finally starts to fall into place.
After playing three hours of Battlefield 6 Season 4, this feels like this game’s moment. With the largest map in the game dropping tomorrow on July 21, 2026, it’s the closest BF6 has come to feeling like the glory days since the heyday of Battlefield 4.
When loading into the new Tsuru Reef map in Battlefield 6, you instantly get a sense of its scale. Its smattering of islands glisten in the distance, surrounded by serene blue coastline just waiting to be ravaged by the imminent war.
Battlefield Studios has clearly thought carefully about how to lay this map out, with waterways running between each island to enable the new naval vehicles to get up close and personal with the capture points.
Speaking of capture points, there are nine of them on this map – the highest number since the ten found on 2042’s Breakaway map, although that did have 128 player servers to sustain. When it comes to the much more manageable 64 player count, these nine capture points do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to balancing the pace of Conquest and Escalation games.
While I’ve enjoyed a lot of my time with Battlefield 6 so far, there is a common criticism that a lot of the maps can feel a little cramped. That’s great if you like the more ‘Call of Duty’ style gameplay that modern gamers seem to prefer, but it’s a big step away from the slower, more tactical focus of older Battlefield titles.
On Tsuru Reef, I finally feel like I’m able to pull off tactical manoeuvres without getting immediately stopped short by a player who’s stumbled upon me by accident. Now that players can travel by both air, land, and sea to their destinations, there are a massive range of options when it comes to flanking, and the large number of capture points make the spread of players feel thin in a way that’s much more enjoyable to play.
Each of those capture points are fantastic to take and hold, too. As someone who cut their teeth on Battlefield 4, I’m a huge fan of seeing the hotel from Hainan Resort appear almost 1:1 on the south of the island – even if its wings aren’t quite as destructible as they once were.
The other two points in the centre of the map are also fantastically constructed with plenty of routes in and out for infantry and land vehicles alike. You could spend the entire match just keeping these points under control if that’s the gameplay you like, leaving the satellite sites to the naval players.
Speaking of naval warfare, the attack boat is a fantastic new addition to Battlefield 6’s line-up of vehicles. It hits hard, and sailing it across the choppy seas comes with a bit of a learning curve as you work to use the rolling waves to your advantage.
It’s great to see that plenty of the map’s capture points have their boundaries extend out into the ocean too, allowing soldiers to contribute towards the objective without leaving their vehicles.
There were plenty of times as an infantry soldier when I enjoyed playing a game of cat and mouse with an attacking boat, hiding on site while poking my head above the parapet to fire off explosive assaults while playing for my life.
I would have liked to have seen some of the concrete bridges connecting the islands destructible for more tactical opportunities – if they are destructible, they have a huge amount of health as I spent a good five minutes hitting one with all the explosive ammunition I could muster.
It would have also been nice to see more dynamic weather appear on the map. We saw a huge storm roll in on BF4’s Paracel Storm, and 2042 experimented with wild weather events too.
The dynamic wave system is a fantastic new addition, but it feels like it could be even better with some more unpredictable elements thrown in there.
Overall though, Season 4 of Battlefield 6 feels like a very big step in the right direction for the game – and that’s just what’s coming at the start. With a remake of Wake Island coming next month as well as a Top Gun crossover that feels right at home in this franchise, the future is only looking positive for EA’s shooter.
Battlefield 6 Season 4 launches on July 21, 2026.
