Battlefield 6 developer reveals "3 and 4 are our biggest influences" as game stays "true to Battlefield and its heritage"

Pimm worked on Battlefield 2042 from the outside, with Battlefield 6 being his first major involvement in the series, but from how he talks about the game and series, you would think him a veteran.

Development on 6 has been significantly more player-led, something that Pimm openly champions: "One of the things that we're doing a lot more for this – and hopefully it's been evident – is basically listen a lot more. Get out there and get the community involved a lot more."

Testing is the name of the game, when it comes to Battlefield 6, with different groups of players constantly providing feedback on the game.

"We're playing this game every single day," Pimm explains. "We've got professional testers playing this thing. Every single week we've got our UXR test where we bring people in for fresh eyes, playing the game every single month. And we've got the BF Labs, where we get the community involved."

Beyond testing, the team has researched heavily, both the good and bad of past Battlefield titles.

"Lots of research, lots of looking back over the whole back catalogue; not just 2042, but looking at 1, 5, 3 and 4. 3 and 4 are our biggest influences in what we wanted to achieve."

"[We are] listening and making the informed choices that we want to make, to make our vision and to keep true to Battlefield and its heritage."

Battlefield Labs has been the keystone of BF6's development. While the early access model has proven wildly successful for many games in the indie space, it is highly unusual for a AAA title, especially one of Battlefield's size, to implement something similar.

The results, however, speak for themselves, and with how successful it appears to have been for Battlefield, it may become more prevalent.

"Huge, huge, huge," Pimm says, of how important the approach has been. "My job is to keep the player in the room and having something like that really helps me because it means everybody's talking about it from the leadership down to the cleaner."

"This was going, 'Listen, let's get [the game] out there more', and it worked brilliantly. Both in the way that you get it technically tested as well as getting those bugs ironed out – you don't want to find those on day zero, you want to get them sorted out beforehand and before people put their money in the till.

"We can't change the world by the time it's good enough for people to play, but we can pivot, we can deviate, we can refine, we can listen."

One area that has been impacted by player feedback is the game's return to a slower, more realistic style, directly contrasted with the faster, flashier, skin-heavy modern shooters like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. For Pimm, the reason for this is simple.

"It's our heritage. It's the way Battlefield has always been," he says, "and that's what we're hearing from our players that they want. That kind of gritty, immersive feeling. You are a soldier. You're in a war. You're not a suit or a one-man superhero; you're a hero as part of a group of heroes.

"And then it's about making that feel realistic. We didn't want to do all the crazy stuff, but to be true to ourselves because that's what makes us different. Everybody needs their USP."

Beyond player feedback, the BF6 has taken a tremendous amount of influence from cinema.

"[We are] making sure it's what the community are asking for, which is a gritty, grounded, realistic experience that feels like the war movies that we choose to watch – the Black Hawk Downs – that's what we're going for. We're not going for Marvel, and that's what makes us better, that's our DNA."

The team has a collection of films – Hyena Road and Hacksaw Ridge, among others – that served as inspirations for different parts of the game.

"'This is for colour and tone. This is for character.' For different reasons, each of those things have touched people in different ways," Pimm explains.

"What are the things you talk about when you get around the coffee pot in the staff room? What are those things that stand out, and how do we capture that and give those 'only in Battlefield moments'? What's the thing that makes that fun or makes that impactful?

"It's about tapping into that and making sure that we can give that and give it in a way that gives agency to the player to create that and they're like 'Not everybody gets to do that thing.'"

On the aspect of modern shooters that has perhaps kept many players on the fence – monetisation – Pimm was unfortunately unable to say much, but what he could say was promising.

"When you buy this package, you get everything in there. The seasonal updates that are coming, they're part of that, the new maps, new mods, new guns, etcetera."

Battlefield 6 releases on 10th October 2025 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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