Battlefield REDSEC review — If you can’t take the heat, go back to CoD!

Season one of Battlefield 6 just launched, and with it came Battlefield REDSEC, the free-to-play multiplayer experience that brings more than just a blazing rework to Battlefield V’s Firestorm battle royale mode. A new royale-esque mode called Gauntlet also made its debut, where teams battle it out to be the top squad. Things get hot! Battlefield Studios has a lot up its sleeves for what has become a record-breaking entry in one of the longest-running FPS franchises.

Battle Royale

Admittedly, I was very skeptical about a battle royale being added to the playlist after Battlefield V’s Firestorm mode felt like such a letdown. It was a 64-player battle royale with a WWII theme and a literal ring of fire closing in. It was a great concept, and I am glad they held onto that formula and chose to revive it. In the REDSEC battle royale mode, teams queue in Duos or Quads to be the last squad standing. Before you drop in, players must select a class, just like they do in any other mode, which plays a vital role in how certain aspects of the game will play out, which we’ll dig into more later. After the lobby is loaded with up to 100 players, you’ll drop into the Fort Lyndon map, which features 21 points of interest full of weapons, ammo, and armor to get you started.

Right off the drop, REDSEC BR struggles with creating its own identity, with the most obvious comparison being Call of Duty’s Warzone.You're surviving against 100 players, dropping into the map and scavenging for loot, grabbing armor plates, and completing missions (as opposed to contracts) throughout the match.Obviously, the games also share that same realistic aesthetic. That familiarity allows you to acclimate quickly, but you can't shake the feeling that you've done this before. But once the ring starts closing in and you've engaged in a few fights, REDSEC BR demonstrates its unique qualities.

The Battlefield signature is fully injected into the battle royale’s veins, starting with that literal ring of fire closing in around you. Imagine you’re minding your own business on the beach and you look out on the horizon and you see a wall of fire coming at you, with explosions and billowing smoke. That’s enough to make a grown man scream like he’s in a 1960s horror movie. This ring is a nearly instant-kill if you touch it. Thankfully, they give you a visual warning when you’re getting too close, including charring and embers on the ground and structures, as well as a danger indicator, and terrifying sound. The firestorm is easily the best ‘zone’ in any battle royale; you can’t change my mind. When you combine that with the destruction physics of Battlefield 6, the REDSEC battle royale begins to stand out more from the competition.

The class system also carries over, with each class providing unique benefits for your squad. The Assault class’ objective focus helps your squad complete missions faster, earning your team additional experience and loot drops. Engineers can repair vehicles and open loot vaults with the repair tool. Support teammates bring the faster revives as well as minor resupplies. The only class that feels replaceable is Recon, who are mainly there to provide intel for the team by detecting enemy movements through the scope of a sniper rifle or with the drone. However, anyone can pick up a sniper rifle, and players can also be spotted using the artillery strike binoculars, which is seen in thermal imaging. With that and the UAV tool, Recon struggles to find its place in REDSEC.

The last piece of the puzzle to help this battle royale stand out is the inclusion of anti-personnel tanks. If you find a keycard, you can unlock one of the tanks sealed inside transport vehicles around the map. I’ve seen the comments about how the tanks are so overpowered in REDSEC, but I couldn’t disagree more. If you recall, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) also had tanks as an alternative killstreak on more open maps, and you had less resources to deal with them. They were still a ton of fun and added that extra bit of spice to the match. This is Battlefield; you have to have tanks, helicopters and complete chaos. They’re not indestructible. You can easily take them down with some well-aimed rockets, an artillery strike, mines, or other explosives.

There do appear to be some issues with hit registration in this mode that could be costing me some gunfights, and plenty of instances where it felt like other players were bullet sponges. I’m no pro by any means, but the gunplay has felt off in the battle royale for these reasons. My only other gripe with the battle royale is that you have to play as a duo or a quad, with no option to close your squad if you’re not queuing with a full team, so you could end up with random players who may not play against you, but they certainly don’t play with you either. I can appreciate that they want this to be squad-focused; however, Trios is still a squad, Solos is also a ton of fun, and random teammates (sometimes) aren’t.

REDSEC is full of features for Battlefield lovers while also catering to fans of other battle royales. It’s an intense and action-packed mode where you can’t let your guard down for even a second. Everything moves quickly, with matches taking maybe 25 minutes from start to finish. The intensity is further enhanced by the roaring flames as the zone shrinks, especially if there is a tank still in play towards the end, which is unlikely as it gets harder to maneuver, making it more vulnerable after a while. I’m still not the best in terms of gunplay, so I’ve struggled a lot, getting revived four times in one match, even.

Battlefield REDSEC’s Gauntlet is better than the Battle Royale; more people need to talk about it

We know negativity spreads faster than Battlefield REDSEC’s enclosing firestorm and generates more clicks. “If it bleeds, it leads,” the saying goes, and Battlefield REDSEC is bleeding. Let me insert some positivity between the negative headlines covering the undeniably ho-hum BR that doesn’t lean into “Only in Battlefield,” unless you

GamingTrendAnthony Shelton

Gauntlet

Falling into a burning ring of fire isn’t the only way to assert dominance in REDSEC. Gauntlet puts teams of players against each other in four objective-based rounds to see which squad will be the last one standing. The game starts with eight squads of four players, presenting them with an objective to complete. How well each squad performs determines whether they move on, with the worst two squads being eliminated at the end of each round. Eventually, only two squads battle it out in the final round.

Every match randomly rotates between four out of eight different missions on a different section of Fort Lyndon. The missions include gathering and extracting intel, capturing data points, squad deathmatch, and more. Playing the objective rewards squads with more points, with additional points rewarded for eliminating enemy players, preventing their progress. The different classes have roles to play in Gauntlet as well, particularly Assault and Support. Assault helps you speed up capture progress, while Support can keep your team in the game with additional ammo as well as faster revives. With combat zones being much smaller than in the Battle Royale, Recon serves little to no purpose, as you’re almost always face-to-face with the enemy. While there are vehicles in Gauntlet, the rounds are very short, limiting the Engineer’s usefulness as they will have little time to actually act before the round is over, especially with each squad (hopefully) being heavily focused on completing the objective more so than getting kills.

Co-editor Anthony Shelton certainly seems to love Gauntlet, calling it the ‘superior mode’ over the REDSEC battle royale mode, and it’s easy to see why. Gauntlet combines the battle royale, squad-focused gameplay, mission focus, and single-life mode thrills all into one, making it one of the most competitive and heated modes in the FPS genre. The best part is, there’s no looting. You drop in with a full kit, ready to hit the ground running. I found myself immediately hooked into the gameplay loop. Although my gunplay could use some serious work, my heart raced with excitement and adrenaline while I raced around with my squad, dominating the field round after round. Anthony says, “You wanted originality. Here it is.” And he’s 100% right! There’s nothing out there like Gauntlet.

Battlefield 6 is quickly becoming a genre-defining epoch, and REDSEC’s battle royale and Gauntlet modes help to propel the game forward. Battlefield 6 has been a commanding force since it launched a month ago, and it will continue pushing forward through the smoke and the flames. As for the haters, you can go back to your slide-cancelling and acting like a bouncy ball.