Electronic Arts' (EA) highly anticipated large-scale multiplayer shooter Battlefield 6 is finally here, and so far, it's proven to be an absolutely colossal hit. Following a near-unanimous stream of positive reviews, the long-awaited FPS skyrocketed to over 750K players on Steam alone at launch, with hundreds of thousands of concurrent players on the game around the clock on Xbox, PC, and PS5 ever since.
Indeed, it's undeniable that Battlefield 6 has been tremendously successful for EA and its Battlefield developers during its launch weekend, and I have no doubt that it will continue to be in the days, weeks, and months to come. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the game remains popular for many years, especially with the power of the Halo Forge-like custom games creation mode Portal in the hands of fans.
With that said, the title isn't without its issues, ranging from a "Netflix-style" menu UI widely disliked by many to searingly bright bloom lighting that makes spotting and engaging enemy players difficult when standing near a window or doorway.
Perhaps Battlefield 6's biggest problem, though, is its Challenges — gameplay objectives to accomplish while in the field. Daily and Weekly Challenges are relatively simple and only reward XP, and are easily completed in the background as you play. These are fine.
Many weapon, mode, and class-specific Challenges, however, have surprisingly difficult or strange objectives that feel poorly thought out and overtuned. And unlike simpler Challenges, these ones have to be completed to unlock a several of Battlefield 6's weapons and class gadgets, making them mandatory if you want to seriously engage with the game's progression system.
Negative feedback from the community about the current state of Challenges has flowed freely since launch last Friday, with many of the top posts on the Battlefield subreddit right now highlighting the issue with scathing criticism.
"Whoever came up with this never played this game ever ... This challenge is so atrocious and completely out of mind, I want to gouge my eyes out," asserted one player in a complaint about Bullet Storm 1, the first Challenge for light machine guns (LMGs) that requires dealing over 10,000 damage while hip firing.
Negative feedback from the community about the current state of Challenges has flowed freely since launch last Friday, with many of the top posts on the Battlefield subreddit right now highlighting the issue with scathing criticism.
LMGs are horribly inaccurate when hip fired, so the objective is nonsensical; it's encouraging players to rush into close-quarters and play poorly just to try and achieve this goal, when the way you're supposed to use LMGs is to post up in cover and spray streams of fire down chokepoints to suppress and mow down infantry.
Close Quarters 1, a Challenge to deal the same amount of damage with submachine guns (SMGs) while aiming down their sights, has the opposite problem. SMGs are fairly accurate when hip-fired and on-the-move, so you'd think that would be what their Challenge requires. Instead, it wants you to slow down and ADS, which is something better suited to fighting at medium or long range with assault and marksman rifles.
Some Challenges in the "Unit" category are very frustrating as well, such as Conquest 3 and Escalation 4 — assignments that require a whopping 30 and 35 kills while playing each mode's objective, respectively. "Loving the game so far, enjoying it immensely, but these challenges are...insane?" commented one shocked player in another top post. "I would get it if it was an over time thing, but 30 kills on objectives in a single round?"
Thankfully, most class-specific Challenges tied to unlocking gadgets are far more sensible. However, there's an entirely different issue with them, which is the fact that they seem to be bugged right now for tons of fans — myself included.
Despite my best efforts over Battlefield 6's launch weekend, I wasn't able to get any of these Challenges done since none of them are actually tracking my progress. As a result, I'm still stuck with the game's default gadgets across all four classes, and that's frustrating since I'd very much like to try out alternative options in my loadouts.
Admittedly, this is more of a Battlefield 6 launch issue bug than a problem with the Challenges themselves, but I digress. Ultimately, either because of bizarrely designed objectives or this incredibly irksome glitch, engaging with the game's Challenges is a real pain at the moment.
Thankfully, most class-specific Challenges tied to unlocking gadgets are far more sensible. However, there's an entirely different issue with them, which is the fact that they seem to be bugged right now for tons of fans — myself included.
That's a shame, because I'm in love with pretty much every other aspect of Battlefield 6's multiplayer, and sorely want to actually be able to make progress in it. Here's hoping EA and Battlefield Studios roll out some improvements and fixes to Challenges soon.
Note that Battlefield 6 is available for $69.99 on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5 now, with the Xbox version getting some major discounts on Loaded (formerly CDKeys). Specifically, the Standard Edition is $61.19 at Loaded, while the more expensive $100 Phantom Edition is just $81.59 at Loaded.
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