Battlefield 6 Preview: Impressions after going hands-on with Season 4

If you've come so far as to read an impressions preview on the fourth season of Battlefield 6, chances are you are aware this next round of content will be arriving in Battlefield Studios' popular multiplayer game as soon as later this week from July 21.

You may also be somewhat aware of the content and additions it's bringing to the table. If not, don't fret, as we've already summarised the Phase-by-Phase plans for Season 4 in a handy article you can read in full over here.

But anyway, for those searching for a more in-depth taste of what's coming with Season 4, we've had the chance to go hands-on with the next chapter of Battlefield 6 in a preview session where the map of Tsuru Reef was available to full effect. To this end, this impressions piece is effectively just a preview of Phase 1: Pacific Front, as we've been able to put the map, the new weapons, and the new vehicles through the ringer in both Conquest and Escalation action.

Immediately, what caught my attention with Tsuru Reef is how bright and open the map is. It's a Pacific island with all of the expected fittings and features, be this golden sandy beaches, rolling waves, broad verticality and steep cliff edges, plus interconnecting bridges between the smaller islands. There's even a colossal resort on one of the larger islands in the area, complete with an imposing skyscraping building that overlooks the entire map and is only overshadowed by the more feeble cellular towers. And while there is a central urban location spanning a collection of homes and a quaint park, plus some more isolated urban areas like a checkpoint too, the majority of the fighting on Tsuru Reef happens in more rural environments or on the various beaches.

This makes for a rather unique Battlefield 6 experience as the more traditional intense and compact battles, or even the wider rural encounters across open sight-lines, are traded off for a style of combat we don't often find in the game. You find yourself either running and gunning in close-quarters, fighting enemies who pop up on the various hillsides and cliff faces, or sprinting head-first into a threat in one of the few buildings, that is if you're lucky enough to avoid being sniped from a great distance or blasted by the CB90 battle boat, which is effectively a seaborne IFV.

Thankfully, if you want to make yourself a tougher target to hit, there are a variety of options for navigating Tsuru Reef quickly, including dirtbikes, quadbikes, helicopters, fighter jets, and the other boat addition of the RHIB. This is the buggy equivalent of a sea vehicle, as it can seat four players with one driver, one gunner operating a 50. Cal, and two other passengers. It's the perfect seaborne squad vehicle.

The variety of vehicles available on Tsuru Reef is a real treat and gives players a ton of agency in how they go about approaching the tactical objectives of each mode. There's a great level of freedom on this map, there's a huge emphasis on exploration and finding creative new ways to attack an objective thanks to the opportunities the ocean brings. I'm not just referring to using boats either, as a committed player has all the tools they need to swim a wide berth around an objective, flank dug in defenders, and make an impactful hero play. Tsuru Reef is one of the most open Battlefield 6 maps to date when considering how much of it you can easily traverse.

I do think there's a slight lack of chokepoints all the same, areas where teams and squads get caught up and fall over one another in messy close-quarters combat. All of the great Battlefield maps have a few areas where intense and tight action breaks out, but Tsuru Reef doesn't seem to offer that in the same way, meaning a lot of pressure is placed on how the objectives have been incorporated into the map and how each mode changes the dynamic of play.

From what I've experienced so far, Tsuru Reef has left quite an admirable impression on me. It stands out in a way many of the post-launch maps have not, serving up a less irritable experience than the gas-heavy Contaminated, less of a cannon-fodder setup than Blackwell Fields, and more interesting geography than Eastwood - even if the latter map is still pretty excellent. It's because of this that this first Phase of Season 4 looks to be a treat and one Battlefield 6 fans won't want to miss, not least forgetting the three new weapons it will offer as well, which fans should likely expect to come out of the gates in a rather overbalanced and domineering manner as most new Battlefield guns tend to be... The question now is whether Wake Island will take the nautical nature to new heights when Phase 2 of Season 4 debuts in August.