The Battlefield 6 has received plenty of cautious optimism after its initial alpha testing footage was leaked, but the niche filled by the franchise won't be completely barren if the game doesn't succeed. One aspect offering new hope for the series is EA's adoption of pre-alpha testing through Battlefield Labs, giving plenty of time to listen to well before release. Following the catastrophe that Battlefield 2042 was on launch compared to fan expectations, the next release could be a major make-or-break moment for the series.

Even if the gameplay leaks for Battlefield 6 have been addressing some of the series' biggest complaints with Battlefield 2042, it's far too early to get excited over the state of the game. While there's no definitive timeline on how long it will take before players can finally get their hands on Battlefield 6 themselves, there are plenty of fan projects or spiritual successors to tide you over in the meantime. Some of these indie games even seem to offer things the franchise hasn't seen in nearly a decade, potentially even suring their source material.

Heroes Of Valor Offers A Spiritual Successor For Battlefield Heroes

The Best Way To Experience Battlefield's Simple But Effective Gameplay Loop

Unlike the fan restoration projects for Battlefield Heroes, Heroes of Valor is an entirely standalone game, built from the ground up with fully unique assets. After seeing the first gameplay reveal, I thought it was simply a remaster of the original Battlefield Heroes, offering a well-deserved revival for one of the most fun games in the franchise. While both titles are a far cry from the gritty AAA fidelity of Battlefield 6 that tackles war-torn versions of modern environments, that doesn't mean their core gameplay can't be just as, if not even more, fun.

While there is no release date yet, there is currently a playtest for Heroes of Valor available on Steam.

If you haven't played Battlefield Heroes before, it was the first free-to-play game in the series that offered a much more simplified and cartoonish art style compared to Battlefield's more mainstream counterparts. While it looks simple at first, the mechanics and map design of Battlefield Heroes offered an incredibly fun gameplay loop, with many of the core elements of the series being adapted to a faster-paced format. On top of these changes, each class had more exaggerated special abilities to make them feel unique from each other, mixing up the gameplay with more variety than its competitors.

Battlefield's Best Experiences Have Been Mostly Left Behind

Plenty Of Untapped Potential For Future Releases

Unfortunately for fans of the original game, Battlefield Heroes was shut down in 2015 over a lack of players to warrant keeping the game running, likely a result of its incredibly controversial microtransactions. Rather than simply offering the standard cosmetics of free-to-play games, EA eventually added rentable weapons that provided a significant advantage for real-life money, which quickened its already declining player base. Battlefield Heroes is far from the only game in the series to have been left behind over time, as many entries are being solely kept alive by a handful of dedicated fans.

While original games like Heroes of Valor do an excellent job filling the gap left behind by Battlefield's massive influence on the shooter genre, it's still sad to see such great games being mostly abandoned over the years. Although it would be virtually impossible to keep all of Battlefield's ambitious games running at once, each entry offers a unique experience that's hard to find anywhere else. Hopefully, many of the best features in the series, like interactive map design and naval combat, will make their way to Battlefield 6, but it already has plenty of mistakes to avoid that EA needs to focus on instead.

Original Projects Have Proved There's Still Potential In The Battlefield Formula

Imitation Is Often The Best Form Of Flattery

Even though the more cartoony nature of Heroes of Valour might not appeal to the core Battlefield audience, games like BattleBit Remastered have proven that the original formula for the series has everything it needs for success in the modern day, even without AAA graphics. Despite significantly lowered visual fidelity and overall mechanical complexity, BattleBit Remastered somehow managed to deliver a gameplay experience that felt more accurate to the series than Battlefield was able to for years.

With a core focus on engaging gunplay, community-driven customization options, and massive-scale battles with similar environmental destruction, it's easy to see why the fast-paced chaos of BattleBit was such a hit with Battlefield fans. Even if BattleBit Remastered eventually died down and received fewer updates over time, the simple game was able to Battlefield 2042's player count and nearly rivaled its all-time peak.

With the Heroes of Valor project being just one of the many takes on Battlefield in recent years, it's clear that the latest entry in the franchise needs to stand out if it wants to compete in the modern gaming landscape. Thankfully, EA has already acknowledged the biggest weaknesses and strengths of recent entries, so Battlefield can hopefully reconcile the two and create the Battlefield experience that was promised with Battlefield 2042.

A Battlefield Remaster Could Significantly Help The Franchise

Getting The Series Back On Track In-Between Releases

Rather than betting the entire success of the series on a single release every couple of years, the Battlefield franchise could also significantly benefit from remastering or even just re-releasing older titles in the series. While this change could significantly affect the development of EA's primary titles, like Battlefield 6, future remasters could still see success if outsourced to external development studios instead. Many of the games in the series wouldn't need to be changed much at all but could greatly benefit from being ported over to modern systems with an updated coat of paint to boost their player count.

While the reported battle royale mode for Battlefield 6 raises a lot of questions over the lessons DICE learned following Battlefield 2042's failure, it could offer a new incentive to revisit past entries for its battle royale mode. Much like how Call of Duty: Warzone incorporates assets like maps and weapons from each additional entry in the series, remastering games like Battlefield 4 would allow their assets to be used in the more profitable live-service model.

Even if the nature of microtransactions in Battlefield 6's standalone battle royale mode doesn't land with most players, it could benefit the mainline titles with new developer incentives to focus on what makes the series shine. Regardless, Battlefield 6 has a lot of expectations to live up to, with the future direction of the series potentially riding on its shoulders. While I'm still cautiously optimistic about the Battlefield 6 and the longevity of the franchise​​​​​, I'm confident that fan-made games might still be the best way to experience Battlefield's classic gameplay formula in its purest form.

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