Battlefield 6 is now only three weeks away from its October 10 launch date. Fans are counting down days following the successful beta, and the developers share more info through interviews. Yesterday, Technical Director Christian Buhl revealed that having to optimize for a lower spec hardware like the Xbox Series S actually benefited the more powerful platforms, too.
Now, in an interview with IGN, Buhl and Senior Console Combat Designer Matthew Nickerson have discussed the importance of delivering a great console experience in Battlefield 6, to the extent that Nickerson joked it was like the game was 'secretly console first'.
Christian Buhl: I could say we've been thinking about console and the console experience from the start of Battlefield 6. It has been a top-of-the-line thing. We have to build this game as if it was made primarily for console players. Obviously, we're still also thinking about PC players, but in the past, frankly, Battlefield was built as a PC game and then ported to console, and it probably felt like that. That is not how this game was built. We built this from the beginning with the idea in mind that this is going to be on both console and PC. It has to feel and play like it is a console game that was built to be a console game.
Matthew Nickerson: We have a saying here in the office, in Ripple Effect when I joined the team, that I created, called 'Secretly Console First.’ It's a little moniker that kind of pokes fun. We don't want to, obviously, tear down or destroy any of the legacy that Battlefield has, which is, first, a PC game, but we really have to care about console at the end of the day. We've been putting in the reps, putting in the work, just like Christian said. Console has been at the forefront of Battlefield 6 development since day one, and really, we're honed and we are well-crafted in providing this product at the highest quality possible.
In the interview, the two also shared that Battlefield 6 will offer console players the option to turn off cross-play with the PC version (which they may want to do in case of cheating issues) while maintaining cross-play between Xbox Series S|X and PlayStation 5 consoles. When cross-play with PC is enabled, the matchmaking system will still look for console players first if you're playing on Xbox or PlayStation, only expanding the search to include PC if the lobby requires more players. Moreover, the developers have revamped aim assist compared to Battlefield 2042 to ensure cross-play is fair for all players.
Meanwhile, testing of the Battle Royale mode is ongoing on the Battlefield Labs platform.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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