MORGAN PARK, STAFF WRITER
Last week: Got all sappy about the server browser and got very close to downloading Quake.
The Battlefield 6 beta got its hooks into me and my friend group in a way few shooters can, and I know that because we’re spending the 46-day wait for its release by playing other Battlefields. The natural first choice was Battlefield 2042, as it has a new event with unlockable Battlefield 6 skins, but surprisingly, we’ve gravitated toward a game that most of us completely ignored at the time: Battlefield 5.
PC Gamer liked Battlefield 5 when it came out in 2018, but there were plenty of reasons it got the cold shoulder from the wider FPS community. DICE’s ugly Battlefront 2 loot box fiasco was still fresh. Plus, battle royales were the new hotness, and the explosive popularity of free-to-play Fortnite was making full-priced multiplayer games look old-fashioned. And generally, the genre was tending toward sweaty competition over casual chaos—my most-played shooters at the time were Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch.
I owe Battlefield 5 an apology, because it’s really good. I picked it up on sale a few years ago, but I’m only now appreciating its weird guns, smart class choices, and absurdly pretty maps. Thousands of people still play it on Steam every day, and the Battlefield 6 hype has triggered a new surge (its 24-hour Steam concurrent peak was over 12,000 yesterday). It’s not on sale right now, but if you’re interested, it’s on PC Game Pass.
I can see why it’s some people’s favorite: Battlefield 5 plays very differently from the games that came before and after it. DICE got pretty experimental with classes, weapons, and vehicles—not every big swing worked, but some of its ideas were so good that I’m sad they didn’t survive in BF2042:
Spotting
Easily Battlefield 5’s most controversial change to series norms is a huge nerf to spotting. Instead of pressing Q to place a tracking diamond on moving enemies, spotting is an imprecise ping by default. There are some ways to live ping enemies with gadgets, but the only class with a traditional spotting tool is the Recon’s spotter scope. The result is way fewer red diamond symbols telling on each other, but spotting is still a factor.
It’s wild how differently Battlefield plays when stealth is actually viable. Smokescreens can meaningfully blind enemy squads long enough to get a few revives in, and vehicles can even sneak up on you if you’re not watching the minimap. This iteration of spotting feels fairer and more intentional than in BF2042 or the Battlefield 6 beta. I’m a total convert.
Bandages & ammo
To encourage teammates to lean on each other, Battlefield 5 placed hard limits on ammo and healing. Automatic healing takes longer to kick in than usual, but everyone spawns with one bandage that can self-heal quickly. The catch is that you can only get another bandage by finding a medic or a supply station.
Ammo reserves are also smaller, but in turn, both Support and Medics can now toss bandages/ammo packs to individuals from a long distance. It’s a really cool way to make the ammo jockey a more active and consistently useful role—we’ve all had teammates who never seem to use ammo and health stations dropped on the ground, so the automatically accurate toss can be a lifesaver.
Battlefield 2042 ditched the bandage system, but the tossable pouches eventually made their return as a secondary gadget—they’d fit right into Battlefield 6, too.
Classes
Unlike BF2042 and BF6 by default, Battlefield 5 has class-locked weapons (hurray). I like that each class has a clearly defined role, but Battlefield 5 is also a great example of allowing some gun overlap where it makes sense. Medics, for instance, are SMG specialists, but they also have access to a few bolt-action carbines for when close-range isn’t cutting it. That said, Assaults can feel dominant with the double whammy of overwhelming assault rifles and anti-armor RPGs.
The odd class out this time is the Support, whose gadget pool of repair tools, mines, and ammo boxes isn’t terribly exciting. What is exciting are heavy machine guns: they’re exclusive to Support and among the deadliest guns in the game, but interestingly, they’re inaccurate unless you mount their bipod on a wall or the floor.
You basically become a glass tank—locking down entire zones with a laser beam that can melt squads in seconds, checked by the very real danger of being still while doing it. It’s the best modern example of a class weapon having a major influence on its playstyle, so it’s a shame that DICE is favoring a Call of Duty-style free-for-all in Battlefield 6.
The Pacific maps
Back in 2019, Battlefield 5’s final major update added a new faction, several new guns, vehicles, and a handful of Pacific theatre maps inspired by Battlefield 1942. With their own playlist that’s still active, they’re the highlight of the whole package, and all the proof I need that nothing captures the complete Battlefield experience (infantry, boats, jeeps, tanks, and planes) quite like Wake Island. The only thing it’s missing is helicopters.
The server browser
If you want to play a specific map or mode, you can easily go find it. Battlefield 5 was the last of the series with a server browser that included official matchmaking servers, so there’s never a shortage of servers to choose from (even if you’re stuck in a queue for a bit). Fingers crossed that curating your experience in the Battlefield 6 “Portal browser” will be as useful.
