Welcome to Season 6: Dark Creations!
Master the unknown. Grab your squad and embrace your fears in the claustrophobic close-quarters battles of this new Season. Get a full look of everything that’s new below.
//The Battlefield Team
What’s new in Season 6?
Here is an overview of the new content, alongside highlights for changes and improvements:
- New Map: Redacted
- New Weapons: G428, L9CZ and VHX D3
- New Gadgets: Ammo & Medical Pouches
- New Vehicle: YUV-2 “Pondhawk”
- New Battle Pass featuring all-new cosmetics for Specialists, Weapons, Vehicles and more.
- Quality of Life Improvements: Aim Assist Improvements for Controllers, Vehicle Handling Improvements, Recon Balancing and more.
When can I play?
Update 6.0.0 deploys at 08:00 UTC on Tuesday, October 10. Season 6: Dark Creations* and its Battle Pass progression starts at 12:00 UTC on the same day.
With the deployment of the 6.0.0 Update, 24/7 playlists for Redacted will immediately be available on both Conquest and Breakthrough.
Stay Informed
Follow us on the @BattlefieldComm Twitter account to stay informed on the roll out of our updates. You can also follow along with our tracking of Known Issues and further game changes we’re making via our Battlefield forums.
Tune in
Check out the Inside Battlefield Podcast if you’d like to listen to the team talking about the new content.
What’s New?
New Map: Redacted
Inspired by fan-favorite maps from Battlefield’s past like Operation Locker (Battlefield™ 4) and Operation Metro (Battlefield™ 3). This claustrophobic, close-quarters combat focused map takes place in the Scottish Hebrides where an "incident" has revealed a hidden tech-research facility performing classified experiments.
Located within an underground subterranean environment, this is our first map in the Battlefield franchise that offers no outdoor environment. You’ll need to use the tight corridors and elevated areas to play the enemy into your hand - or risk falling into a trap yourself.
This facility – with its biodomes and laboratories – hides more than its fair share of secrets for you to discover as you seek out your prey. Just be sure not to get distracted as the enemy will use any chance to turn the tables and ambush you.
If you’d like to learn more about the creative processes that went into Redacted, take a look at our Dev Notes from yesterday and keep your eyes peeled for an Inside Battlefield Podcast where we discuss things even further!
Boreas Laboratory
The laboratory area is Boreas' crown jewel and where the bulk of the forbidden research is happening. The lab is divided into two large rooms, split down the middle by a trench-like corridor with racks of servers on either side. Inside the laboratory rooms, large 3D printers are producing prosthetic parts, which you can also see scattered across the level. The laboratory offers close to mid-distance combat, where the looming printers offer excellent cover if you want to get up close and personal with your opponent.
Field testing
After you've passed through the laboratory, you enter the Field Testing area, where small, make-shift houses, provide cover and gives further hints as to what has happened in this facility. The lighting and atmosphere is due to send shivers down your spine, but you better stay alert, as the protruding rocks give both you, and your enemy, ample opportunity to flank.
Stress testing
If you've survived long enough to make it to the next biodome, you'll soon notice the difference in both layout and atmosphere that the Stress Testing area has to offer. While it might feel less claustrophobic it does make vulnerable to enemy sniper fire, as this biodome opens up to long-range combat as well. If you prefer the high-ground, the stacked containers can offer you relative safety, but that means you have to get smack in the middle of the biodome, which means you'll have to constantly watch your six.
Maintenance tunnel
If at any time you want to leave the frantic combat near the flags and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet, the maintenance tunnels can at least offer you the former. The dimly lit tunnels allow you to flank and run directly to any of the flags, but you better stay frosty, as your enemy might have already had the same idea.
New Weapons: G428, L9CZ and VHX D3
The weapons arsenal is expanding this Season with not only new weapons, but also further much community requested improvements to Vault Weapons.
G428
An all new DMR offering exceptional accuracy and substantial penetration power that can help you turn your enemies into prey.
L9CZ
This semi-automatic, highly accurate sidearm is your new best friend in close quarters situations when your primary weapon runs dry.
VHX D3
This unique and futuristic assault rifle features optimized portability and performance, making it a valuable asset for close and medium-range combat. Portable. Powerful. And pulverizing to any enemy that comes out of the shadows.
New Gadgets: Ammo & Medical Pouches
Ammo & Medical Pouches - Support your squad by throwing them pouches that will let them replenish their ammo or health. A valuable lifeline when you find death creeping on you and your team.
New Vehicle: YUV-2 “Pondhawk”
A dynamic two-person transport featuring flight capabilities, letting you and a buddy quickly provide support and rush objectives.
New Battle Pass
Season 6: Dark Creations will include an all new Battle Pass with over 100 tiers of rewards. As always, our gameplay-affecting items – weapons, vehicles, gadgets – are earnable without purchasing the Premium version of the Battle Pass.
We're also introducing the Battle Pass Ultimate Pack, a new option for the Battle Pass that will allow you faster progress through tier skips while also granting you exclusive skins.
Quality of Life Improvements
Dev Notes: Aim Assist Improvements for Controllers
With this update we set out to improve the experience of aiming and aim assist for controller peripherals with a high degree of customizability.
Our goal with aim assist on Battlefield is to make controller aim more accurate while retaining the challenge and skill required of aiming within a First Person Shooter. Aim assist is not only about the process of helping you aim but also about tuning and customizing the feel of input to your personal taste.
We have made multiple systemic improvements, while also ensuring we don’t obstruct the player.
Alongside code and design changes, we are including a new, carefully tuned Default Aim Input Response Curve with an emphasis on customizability. You will now be able to select between many different Response Curves from previous Battlefield titles. These curves can be found within the options and will alter the feel of your aim stick input. There are also legacy acceleration presets and a new slider for tuning slow down separately from other assist features.
Dev Notes: Vehicle Handling Improvements
One of our key focus areas for Update 6.0 was to improve the Vehicle Handling of Ground Vehicles and how they interact on a mobility level in comparison to the general gameplay pace that Battlefield 2042 offers.
Ground vehicles have received a wide range of changes in relation to their Tank Track Friction, Engine Power Curves, and Vehicle Gravity to allow for more weight and more. Additionally, we have made further changes to Jet Afterburners, Tor Tank balancing and Gunships to further realign and improve ground vehicular combat in cohesion with air and infantry Combat.
Dev Notes: Recon Balancing
Rao’s Cyberwarfare Suite will now trigger all damage states on targeted vehicles, as well as no longer blocking firing on vehicles. Additionally, Rao no longer reveals players around an enemy he has recently hacked and killed. Instead Rao will now reveal enemies in the target's area when he hacks a target.
This will reveal all information in that area, such as all enemy soldiers, vehicles and gadgets within 10m of the hacked target for a very brief period of time.
We have also made adjustments to the EMP Grenade and Casper’s OV-P Recon Drone to align with this new hacking behavior.
Other Areas of Improvement
Subsonic Ammo & Suppressors
The first update is a minor design change regarding Subsonic Ammo, and how it works in combination with Suppressors.
Previously, this combination would hide the directional indicator in the hitmarkers on the receiving end, hiding the orientation of the attacker.
We have decided to update this following our hitmarkers update and to improve the synergy with Suppressors in a way that minimizes frustration for the receiving end and promotes weapon build variety.
Previously:
- Heavy Silencers = No self-spotting on minimap at any distance
- Light Silencers = No self-spotting over 20 meters
- Subsonic Ammo had no impact on this
Update 6.0:
- Light Silencer = No self-spotting over 40 meters
- Light Silencer + Subsonic = No self-spotting over 20 meters
- Heavy Silencer = No self-spotting over 20 meters
- Heavy Silencer + Subsonic = No self-spotting at any distance
Camera Recoil
Through Community Feedback we became aware of an issue where the crosshair of a weapon could deviate too much from the center of the screen and was affecting certain weapons a lot more than some others.
This resulted in a lack of consistency between weapons and could make controlling recoil more difficult particularly when it came to quick bursts on higher recoil weapons. We have done a pass on every All-Out Warfare weapon to resolve this issue and improve gunplay.
With the new settings, the weapons will still have some minor movement to transmit the feeling of the recoil but recoil control and bursting should feel more responsive and consistent.
We have additionally taken the chance to do some further small tweaks to the way bolt action recoil works with the camera which should also improve the feel of the weapons and help you keep your aim in follow up shots.
LMG Balance Update
Looking at the recent Update 5.2 release where we updated Vault LMGs Attachments, recoil and other stats, a dispersion change was also done to bring them to where we thought they should be when compared to Assault Rifles and the rest of the roster.
We believe we didn’t quite hit our intended goal with those changes and that we had pushed them a bit too far, where the gunplay when using LMGs didn’t feel quite right.
We decided to do an extra tweaking pass on the entire LMG category, take a look at the changelog below to learn more about the detailed changes coming as part of this update.
DMR Balance Update
DMRs have also received tweaks, but to a much lesser extent. The intention here was not really to do any significant blanket nerfing or buffing, but to review the state of the weapons and make sure they performed as intended. Take a look at the changelog below to learn more about the detailed changes coming as part of this update.
Boris & Crawford Improvements
In response to Engineer feedback, we are taking steps to improve the experience of playing as Boris and Crawford with Update 6.0. As we outlined many months ago as part of the Class Rework, the role of an Engineer is both as an anti-vehicle Specialist and one able to hold down a position and we feel this aspect of Engineer gameplay needed further balance improvements to make the available choices within the class more interesting.
As such, Boris will now have further emphasis on ensuring the uptime of his Sentry Turret in order to have optimal damage output of that Turret, while Crawford will have a completely new Specialist Trait called Deep Pockets which provides an extra rocket to shoulder-fired launchers.
We will continue to assess Engineer feedback, and all the other topics listed above as we begin to hear your thoughts once all these changes are live!
Changelog
AI, Soldier and General Improvements
- Added a new option that allows players to auto throw Ammo/Medical Crates upon button press, similar to the auto throw grenades option. This option can be found under Mouse & Keyboard or Controller > On Foot.
- When a squad mate attempts to deploy onto a person who is in combat, that person will receive a notification informing them a squad mate is attempting to deploy onto them and that they should seek cover to let the squad spawn happen. Both visually and audibly.
- Fixed the directional arrow on some world icons sometimes showing when the icon is not sticking to an edge.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Nightstick Melee Weapon to fire an invisible projectile that'd create impacts on the world and geometry. Sorry about that, Penguin secret technology almost made it out.
- Fixed an issue that caused downed players to appear as alive on the big map for a brief moment when playing as a Support Specialist.
- Fixed an issue that caused no hand signal animation to play when spotting the Centurion C-RAM.
- Improved the UI animation for when a player spots a target to feel more rewarding and snappy.
- Improved the enemy health bar experience to be more readable in understanding how much health is remaining from an enemy player as well as how much damage you have recently dealt to that player.
- Implemented an additional dark outline that helps visualize the total length of the health bar.
- Changing the lost health bar (right side) so it uses an alpha gradient to improve contrast with the remaining health bar (left side), which will lead to better visibility of remaining health.
- Added an animated hit event light gradient that sits at the right edge of the remaining health bar.
- Darkened the remaining health glow (with the goal to visually coincide better with the player name).
- Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause electrical static audio to play when reviving a player. Less zap zap, more pew pew.
- Fixed an issue that would cause the same command to repeat itself when re-opening the Commorose for a second time.
- Fixed an issue that would cause AI defenders to get stuck in concrete walls under certain fences.
- Fixed an issue that would cause the distance to enemies further than 50m to not show up.
- Improved performance on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles while navigating Weapons in the Deploy Screen
- Fixed an issue where input became throttled while having more than one controller plugged in and using any controller other than controller 1.
- Fixed an issue that caused VFX particles to be seen through some objects / materials.
- When performing a revive, attempting to Fire or ADS will now cancel the revive action.
Dev Comment: We made this change as we noticed that players were sometimes getting stuck performing a revive action when they're trying to quickly cancel to kill an enemy. This change is to respect your input given to the game.
- Medics inside of vehicles will now be hidden from the nearby reviver list unless they specifically ping the downed player.
Dev Comment: This is to reduce player frustration of medics not reviving when they are playing within vehicles, we acknowledge players within vehicles are less likely to jump out and revive.
Audio
- Polished the audio experience when dying from explosions.
- Added audio fixes around foliage assets on Hourglass.
- Removed tinnitus sound effect from low damage dealing explosions.
- Resupplying Med Pens from a Medical Crate now has audio.
- The RPG7-V2 now has audio when performing a lock on to a designated target.
- Other players can now hear when a jet is doing a close by while boosting.
- Fixed an additional issue that caused the SU-57 jet to not have any boost audio.
- Improved the obstruction system to minimize cluttered soundscape involving sounds further away and make close sounds more relevant and valid.
- Vehicles, explosions and weapon sounds played in an exterior environment, will be more obstructed beyond a certain range if the player is in an interior environment.
- Additionally, this same category of sounds when played in an interior environment will be more obstructed on far distances and several rooms away.
Battlefield Portal
- Vehicles now spawn at maximum health when the vehicle maximum health multiplier is set to 2.
- Fixed an issue that would cause the JU-87 Stuka's (Battlefield 1942) crosshair to disappear when in ADS/Zoom
- Fixed an issue that caused the Dynamite (Battlefield 1942) to switch to another weapon when trying to detonate all 5 sticks at once.
- Fixed an issue that caused XP restrictions to not correctly update when changing PvP AI settings in the Portal Web Builder.
- Fixed an issue that caused Armored Transports (Battlefield 3) to have the incorrect world iconography.
- Fixed an issue where the Input Restriction blocks were not affecting AI Soldiers.
- Fixed an issue where the OnPlayerUndeploy and OnPlayerDeployed events would sometimes not trigger for AI Soldiers.
- Enable controls while rearview camera is active on Battlefield Portal planes
Class Changes
Recon
- The Recon Class now has a Weapon Proficiency to Secondary Weapons alongside their Sniper Rifle Proficiency. This new Secondary Weapons Proficiency enables them to deploy and undeploy their Secondary Weapon at a faster rate.
- This combination will function on all weapon combinations as Recon, such as hitting an enemy with a Sniper Rifle to quickly swap to a pistol, or SMG to quickly swap to a pistol.
Maps and Modes
Hourglass:
- Fixed an issue where Vehicles would start shaking if placed on top of sand dunes.
Discarded:
- Fixed destruction around A1 flag.
- Ensured Tornado does not spawn on HQ at the start of the round.
Reclaimed:
- Fixed an issue on Custom Conquest where B1 and B2 points were not working as intended.
Breakthrough:
- Deployable gadgets are now destroyed after territory control change on Breakthrough.
Fast Conquest:
- Fixed an issue with where teams had the incorrect number of tickets.
Tactical CQ:
- Fixed Missing Voice Over during End of Round.
Gadgets & Specialists
- Fixed an issue that caused the smoke grenade to allow explosive damage to bleed through walls.
- If the EOD Bot falls onto a soldiers head, it will now kill them (It’s-a me, Penguinio)
- Fixed an issue that caused passengers of vehicles firing shoulder-fired launchers to push the vehicle.
- When attempting to deploy a gadget in the world in an area that it cannot be deployed, it will now present the reason why it is failing to do so, such as Underwater, Not Enough Space, Stolen by Penguins.
- Improved the scaling of the out of range lock-on states to be more visible at range
- Improved the readability of blocked lock-on states.
- Grenades and missiles will now have their minimum damage capped out at 10 to ensure damage reliability.
- Fixed an issue that caused a broken sprint animation when swapping to the RPG7-V2 during a tactical sprint.
- Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause defibrillators to be in the characters hands while parachuting.
- The Ammo Crate is no longer invincible and can now take damage and be destroyed.
- The Spawn Beacon now requires slightly more room to be deployed that matches more accurately to its object boundaries.
Dev Comment: This should help alleviate situations where Spawn Beacons can be wedged into incredibly narrow spaces which prevent deploying on the Spawn Beacon from occurring. Sometimes sneaky doesn’t always mean optimal.
Angel
- Fixed an issue that caused the parachute to lag behind Angel's supply drop
Blasco
- Increased spotting radius of Blasco's X6 Infiltration Device by 10%.
Boris
- Increased the range at which Boris' Technician Trait activates from 1.6m to 3.2m
- Boris' Technician Trait will now cause the Sentry Turret to have increased rate of fire by 25%
Dev Comment: The common behaviour we saw with players playing as Boris was to place their turret and then forget it entirely in hopes it'd scoop up a kill or two. With this change we're seeking to incentivise staying near the turret and to use it as a defensive tool placed with intention. Chokepoints, high reaching balconies and corridors are now Boris’ territory.
Casper
- Fixed an issue that allowed the Recon Drone's thermal sight to see enemies through smoke.
- Increased the cooldown for the Recon Drone's EMP by 5 seconds.
Dev Comment: This change comes as part of the EMP / Hacking gameplay behaviour improvements mentioned within Rao’s section to ensure healthy gameplay balance.
Crawford
- Crawford's Trait has been replaced by Deep Pockets, which provides an extra rocket to shoulder-fired launchers.
Dozer
- Dozer will now take damage and flinch when taking direct hits towards his shield.
- Fixed an issue that caused the 40mm Kinetic Grenade Pod to spawn a bullet deflection off of Dozer's shield.
- Dozer has also received additional balance improvements regarding his movement:
- Rotation Speed decreased from 265 degrees per sec to 240.
- Pitch Speed reduced from 190 degrees per sec to 120.
- Strafing right/left movement speed reduced from 0.9x to 0.85x.
- Walking Backwards speed reduced from 0.9x to 0.85x.
- Sprint velocity reduced from 0.9x to 0.8x.
Falck
- Fixed an issue that caused the self heal animation on Falck's Syrette Pistol to sometimes repeat itself.
- The Penguins have stolen Falck’s Syrette Pistol charges from the Medic Crate, resulting in her no longer being able to resupply Syrette Pistols from the crate. Pesky Penguins, why would they need Syrette Pistol charges?
Irish
- Fixed an issue that caused the health bar of the Shootdown Sentinel (EIDOS) to not appear when repairing it with the Repair Tool.
- Fixed an issue that caused Irish''s trait to not resupply the SPH Explosive Launcher.
- Fixed an issue where an active friendly Shootdown Sentinel (EIDOS) would incorrectly try to intercept an enemy grenade turned friendly after being thrown back by a friendly soldier.
- Fixed an issue where an active friendly Shootdown Sentinel (EIDOS) would fail to show any VFX & SFX upon intercepting a grenade turned hostile after being thrown back by a soldier.
Lis
- Fixed an issue where Lis in third-person perspectives wouldn't aim in the correct direction with her G-84 TGM equipped while in vehicle open-seats.
Mackay
- Fixed an issue that caused weapon magazines to clip through Mackays forearm in the pre-round screen of a match.
- Reduced maximum range of Mackay's grappling hook by 17%.
- Reduced the speed at which the grapple hook reaches maximum length after being fired by 25%.
Dev Comment: We've made these changes to reduce the number of scenarios Mackay could use his grapple hook to get to unintended locations, as well as to reduce what we call the 360 problem which means you can die from 360 degrees of the level around you, which makes it difficult to assess where the danger will come from.
Paik
- Improved the visibility of Paik’s EMG-X Scanner which will now be more opaque so characters are more visible against the environment.
- We have altered the timings of Paik's EMG-X Scanner which will result in a longer stay time and a snappier fade out, while still taking the same total time to play her scan.
- Improved the audio experience when acquiring targets with her EMG-X Scanner to understand how many enemies have been detected.
Rao
- Added visual and audio feedback to vehicles that have been hacked by Rao's Cyberwarfare Suite.
- Rao no longer reveals players around an enemy he has recently hacked and killed, instead Rao will now reveal enemies in the target's area when he hacks a target. This will reveal all information in that area, such as all enemy soldiers, vehicles and gadgets within 10m of the hacked target for a very brief period of time.
- Sparks VFX appear when a vehicle is hacked to give improved player feedback.
- Vehicles will now be able to shoot while they are hacked. Vehicles will instead become “damaged” when hacked. Wheel, turret, engine damage states will trigger.
- To provide further emphasis on electronic warfare, the EMP Grenade will now behave similar to Rao’s new hacking behaviour.
Explosion Balancing
The following changes are made as our continued efforts to reduce the prevalence of explosions within Battlefield 2042, and ensure that we work towards a more balanced combat field, as intended. We will continue to assess community feedback around this topic.
Frag Grenade
- Reduced inner blast radius from 2.25m to 2m.
- Reduced blast radius from 7m to 6m.
Scatter Grenade (Not Fragmented)
- Reduced inner blast radius from 2.5m to 2m.
- Reduced blast radius from 6.5m to 4m.
SPH Launcher
- Reduced magazine capacity to 1.
- Reduced maximum amount of shells carried from 4 to 2.
- Added a movement speed penalty when aiming down sight from 1x to 0.6x.
XM370A
- Reduced number of magazines from 2 to 1.
- Increased the recharge timer from 15s to 18s.
- Adjusted the recharge behaviour to fill missing rounds into the reserve as it only has a singular magazine now, to ensure recharges occur when the weapon is still loaded.
- The XM370A's projectile explosion will now light up the surrounding environment.
C5
- Reduced the range at which the C5 explosion will kill a max health soldier.
- Adjusted the damage curve to be more readable.
Vehicles
As you may have seen with our recent communications on BattlefieldComms, a large focus for Update 6.0 is to improve the handling and feel of vehicular combat and to move their mobility in line with the pacing of the current state of game.
These changes will ensure that Ground Vehicles remain more grounded, but have the ability to tackle tighter combat scenarios with increased mobility through tank track friction and gravity improvements. We have also taken on board player feedback to address the current power of the EMKV-90 TOR, and taken the opportunity to bring further improvements to Jets.
General
- Updated Heat Shell name to match its functionality.
- Fixed an issue where directional exit points would not behave as intended when on slopes.
- All vehicle open seats will now keep their own aim rotation within their constraints when the vehicle rotates
- When your vehicle has been designated by either the SOFLAM or Tracer Dart, it will now display information as part of the locking on warning, such as Incoming, Locked, Locking and Designated.
Dev Comment: This is to provide feedback to pilots and drivers when they have been made vulnerable by the Tracer Dart or SOFLAM.
- Fixed an issue that would let thermal scopes on certain vehicles capable of viewing enemies thermal signature through smoke.
- Fixed an issue that would cause some vehicle crosshairs to shake after a reload when holding down the fire button.
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to control a vehicle while their body remained outside the vehicle after a revive.
- Fixed an issue that prevented characters from equipping a pilots helmet when piloting an air vehicle. Safety first!
- Fixed an issue that would cause the camera to clip through the ground when entering a vehicle with Dozer's shield equipped.
MBT
- Lowered track friction for better maneuverability.
- Increased turning rates when accelerating to allow for more mobility during combat, additionally we have also increased turning rates without acceleration input.
- We have made improvements to acceleration and deceleration when in a standstill position, and the ability to turn whilst in this position.
- Increased power of braking slightly.
- Longer time to reach max speed in MBTs, players can bypass this by using boost
Bolte & LATV4
- Lowered max speed when boosting and undergoing normal acceleration.
- Steering improvements for all speeds, gear ratios have also been updated in connection to these new settings for the Bolte.
- Fixed an issue that caused the systemic damage icon to not be updated when in the second seat of the M5C Bolte.
EBAA Wildcat
- Increased power of braking.
Air Vehicles
- Lowered impulse of 30mm on Attack Heli.
- Players will now be ejected from aircraft when attempting to enter elevators with them.
- Fixed an issue that'd cause the Mi-240 Super HIND to continually fly left or right after landing on a surface.
- Fixed an issue that allowed attack helicopters to fire before the overheat stage had fully finished.
This concludes Part 1 of our Update 6.0 notes, due to the length of the Update Notes we have had to place this into two parts.