Hot off the tarmac is Battlefield REDSEC, the Battlefield Battle Royale take by the developers at DICE. Whether it’s the enormously high player count or the reviews coming in, Everyone has something hot to say about the latest Battlefield flame.
Launched only hours ago, Battlefield 6 REDSEC has already reached over 500,000 players. Like all Steam launches, you either hit it good or hear all about everything you’ve ever done wrong. So far, players are saying both at the top of their lungs.
What’s wrong with Battlefield REDSEC?
The first complaint I see from folks is that many of the Battle Pass challenges are tied to REDSEC, forcing players to participate or miss out on valuable Battle Pass tokens. As with the first one shown in the screenshot above, after completing seven weekly challenges, players must play Battlefield REDSEC or lose tokens.
Many challenges in the game aren’t tied to a specific game mode; if they are, they’re part of the Battlefield 6 experience that players paid for: Grounded warfare between two teams.
Forcing players into an entirely different genre like Battle Royale, which is different to the point that it’s a free-to-play addon, hits on a whole new level.
Looking over the current weekly challenges, none of them are tied to any game modes other than the new REDSEC modes. To make it even weirder, some of the challenges that can be completed with the main game aren’t even unlocked through REDSEC.
Take, for example, the challenge listed above, “Complete weekly games.” After two rounds played, neither of them counted as a completed game. I stayed as long as I could for both rounds played.
Here are some of the player reviews on Steam:
- “Why is the battle pass I got for Battlefield 6 trying to push me towards playing this crud?” — 00_01_02
- “They force you to play Battle Royale by putting this trash mode in weekly challenges. P.S. If you don’t play them, it’s much slower to progress in the battle pass, and the five rerolls don’t help when almost half of the challenges are battle royale….” — Trash Panda
- “I wouldn’t hate it so much if I weren’t forced to play it for challenges in the main game. But I am. So I do. This is not why I bought Battlefield 6.” — Doombox
Forcing players to play Battle Royale, which couldn’t be further from the overall vibe Battlefield 6 has, is entirely counter-productive to keeping your fanbase happy. A promised ground experience turning into forced Zoomer game modes isn’t what the Battlefield players want, and that’s clear.
Is Battlefield REDSEC a “Wholesale copy of Warzone”?
While weekly challenges tied to REDSEC are one thing, it’s another for players to claim your game outright is a copy of any other game, especially when that game is Call of Duty: Warzone. I don’t entirely disagree either.
From the moment I hit the ground, everything felt all too similar to something I had played before. That similarity wasn’t Battlefield, but the last game of Warzone I played sometime back in late 2024. From the loadout drops to the crates on the ground. Everything had that “open and pick up” feeling that’s synonymous with every round of Warzone.
I liked it, sure, which seems to be about half of us, but it’s impossible to say REDSEC doesn’t feel like a Warzone clone with a straight face. Bounty missions, weapons with incremental upgrades marked by purple and orange colors, second-chance mechanics, all of it felt like I was back in Warzone.
I’m not the only one, either, according to Steam reviews, where players are giving similar thoughts:
- “Absolutely soulless, near-sighted cash grab and a wholesale COPY of Warzone.” — BILL HAVERCHUCK
- “I was hoping for something different and fresh from the BR world, perhaps for a lot slower version of Warzone for my old brain. I wasn’t overly confident about it, though, since the last 3 or 4 years, BF has been getting closer and closer to COD in terms of running, gunning, and sliding everywhere. After playing this, yeah, it’s basically Warzone 3.0” — jonnny!
- “Another garbage Warzone clone, we don’t need more battle royales.” — FuNk
When I first heard about Battlefield REDSEC, I thought DICE had a real chance to shake up the genre. Similar to my feelings when it comes to ARC Raiders, I wanted a Battle Royale that played and looked different from the competition.
Battlefield 6 had all the positive press in the world to change the mindset of players when it comes to Battle Royale, and rather than making something truly unique, we’ve been granted a Warzone variant with similarly forced progression.
I don’t like it, and neither do thousands of other players. In a genre that’s beginning to stagnate, copying the top dog doesn’t push the mode forward. All it does is reiterate that battle royale games are really starting to deteriorate.
Rather than making something truly unique, we’ve been granted a Warzone variant with similarly forced progression.
What can DICE do at this point to change up Battlefield REDSEC? I’m not sure, but for starters, they can drop meta loadouts and forced integration with the main game. That would be a fantastic starter pack.
How about you? How are you getting on with Battlefield REDSEC? Let us know below or on one of our social media channels. Do you think REDSEC will succeed, or get buried by the already established competition and the likes of the up-and-coming ARC Raiders?
