Technologies

Battlefield 6 Review: Big-Battle Mayhem Is Back, but Destruction Is AWOL

The revamped Battlefield has some divisive tweaks, but its signature mechanic is now more cosmetic than strategic.

Marching forward down an alley, gunfire rings out and my squadmates go down. As the last one standing, I hit the ground while bullets whiz over my head, using my defibrillator gadget to crawl forward and revive my teammates one by one — the whole squad brought back to take the day.

It’s a moment that could only happen in Battlefield 6, EA DICE’s next entry in the beloved military shooter franchise. In my early time with the game, I’ve had a range of these «experiences» that remind me why this franchise stands out from Call of Duty and other modern first-person shooters. And while the new game feels like it’s crept closer to the rapid-paced arena-style combat of those other FPS games, it mostly keeps to the Battlefield series’ signature experience: squad-based, large-scale battles mixing soldiers and vehicles.

Mostly, anyway — though some of developer EA DICE’s choices during the Open Beta rubbed players the wrong way, including letting each class use every weapon type. That setup will likely remain the dominant way to play multiplayer, despite the more restrictive Closed Weapons mode still available. It’s a tweak to the Battlefield formula seemingly meant to attract gamers beyond the series’ playerbase. While it does dilute some of the game’s identity, it’ll be hard to gauge how much until the full release.

One of the game’s most notable visual upgrades also proves paper-thin in multiplayer matches. Destruction barely matters — fire an explosive or a tank round into a building and only the outer walls will crumble. It’s undeniable that EA DICE made the crumbling debris look stunning, but it barely serves a purpose in combat. Gone are the days of leveling entire buildings into rubble, as in Battlefield 1 and 5, when destruction could reshape the battlefield. With so many of Battlefield 6’s maps set in dense city streets and alleys, it’s a shame I couldn’t blast open more pathways and lanes for a strategic advantage.

Players may eventually find better ways to exploit the destruction mechanics. But that won’t happen on day one, since most explosive gadgets are locked behind higher progression levels or specific challenges when Battlefield 6 launches on Oct. 10. At best, players can equip all their classes with a sledgehammer melee weapon and try taking down buildings one swing at a time. They won’t get far more useful demolition tools until after lots of playtime — C4 sapper charges for the Recon class, for instance, aren’t available until reaching level 20 and a class challenge is finished.

What’s left is a competent, riveting shooter that shines where Battlefield always has — in large-scale battles where squads capture zones and outmaneuver enemies with a mix of coordinated tactics and vehicle support. That’s where you’ll find those unforgettable, had-to-be-there moments of wild survival and miraculous plays that are now easier than ever to record to send to your friends. Outside that sweet spot — in the areas where Battlefield 6 tries to encroach on other shooters’ turf — the gameplay feel less natural. I can only lose so many close-quarter gunfights before I start craving the chaos of the big battlefield again.

Battlefield 6 pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses

Battlefield 6 includes a solo campaign mode, which I unlocked about halfway through — a middling story about a NATO combat unit shipping out around the world to fight the global mercenary force Pax Armata. There’s enough intrigue in an overarching intelligence conspiracy plot to pique interest, and some fun set pieces, including an airdrop, a beach landing in an armored personnel carrier and a stealth infiltration. But mostly, it’s a bunch of shooting down corridors until you’re off to the next international location that shows up prominently in multiplayer maps.

For most gamers, multiplayer is where they’ll spend almost all their time in Battlefield 6. The large-scale modes are the standouts, though maps are hit or miss. Liberation Peak is a mountainous desert with zones split between landscape features. Operation Firestorm, returning from Battlefield 3, is an overly large map with vast stretches of empty terrain between capture points that practically requires vehicles just to reach the firefights. The best maps balance verticality with clear lanes for patient long-range shots and tighter areas packed with obstacles for cover for frantic close-range fights.

The same goes for Battlefield’s large-scale All-Out Warfare modes. Breakthrough is enjoyable, with teams taking turns between attacking and defending as they fall back across capture zones. Conquest keeps things straightforward — rack up points for holding objectives. Escalation, meanwhile, tends to drag on as teams struggle to capture and hold each map’s trio of zones to secure a win.

The game’s close-quarters modes — like Team Deathmatch and King of the Hill, which most closely mirror Call of Duty’s small-scale, high-intensity fights — are even more polarizing. With no vehicles to take out, the Engineer class is functionally worthless. The maps, which are small chunks carved from the large-scale maps, make or break CQC: One split off from Liberation Peak was frenetically fun to play, while another from Manhattan Bridge was boring, with bland, gray buildings under construction.

Keep in mind, most of my impressions come from the open beta, since the Battlefield 6 review period had relatively few online players. Most of my matches had just a handful of flesh-and-blood teammates and rivals, with bots filling in around 90% of the roster on each side. While that meant I couldn’t properly preview the new maps introduced after the open beta, it still gave me an idea of what they represented — as well as all the guns and gadgets that’ll come with the full game.

Battlefield 6’s arsenal at launch is respectably robust, with 41 main weapons. Not all categories are quality stocked, though — assault rifles, SMGs and LMGs each get eight options, while shotguns and sniper rifles only have three apiece. But players will have to play awhile to use them; I’m at level 14 and can only access 11 weapons. Among the game’s four pistols to choose from, I can only use one so far.

Gadgets are also locked behind higher levels or challenges, which, I can only imagine, will frustrate new players who’ll likely have to slog through hours of playtime to fully diversify their kits. I was particularly annoyed to be stuck with the Engineer’s basic land mine, which can be thrown all of three feet, knowing far more advanced anti-vehicle options are waiting at levels 27 and 37.

Once players get all their toys and guns, they’ll likely better match tactics to their preferred play style. That’s not even counting the two so-called Training Paths eventually available. These paths open up new abilities during matches, including better vehicle repair or extra ordnance, encouraging players to stick with single classes.

Add in grenades and class items and that’s a lot of complexity to juggle during matches. This balance is one of Battlefield 6’s biggest strengths, giving a boost to players who aren’t FPS veterans — supporting teammates or taking out vehicles can be just as valuable as racking up kills.

There are still frustrating frictions within the game — some of which teach lessons — like the ultra-fast time-to-kill that can drop you in under a second, encouraging you to stick to cover and set up ambushes instead. Others are baffling developer choices: I once squared off against an enemy attack helicopter, firing off several anti-air Stinger missiles that always missed thanks to a seemingly endless supply of diverting chaff spurting from the spicy whirlybird, which always gunned me down moments after. Why even bother giving players anti-air options?

Did EA DICE ruin Battlefield 6 with open weapons?

Probably the most controversial choice EA DICE has made is switching from locking certain weapons to specific classes. In prior Battlefield games, Assault got midrange assault rifles, Engineer got close-range submachine guns, Support got large-magazine light machine guns and Recon got sniper rifles. While every class could use more limited shotguns, medium- to long-range designated marksman rifles and the all-around carbines, their «signature weapons» were most often the best choice.

In Battlefield 6, EA DICE opened the floodgates by letting every class use every weapon in so-called Open Weapon playlists, though there are still power-up advantages to picking guns suited to each class, including less delay in aiming down sights. In a post-mortem blog post analyzing player behavior in the open beta, the studio confirmed that «more players played with non-signature weapons in Open Weapon playlists.» But even so, the post continued, «there was not a single dominant weapon archetype, and we observed a consistent and well-distributed pick-rate between them.»

The deadly assault rifle wasn’t, for example, the de facto pick that made every other weapon pointless. That matched my experience, with players rotating between different guns. Heck, the humble M4A1, the first carbine available to all players, was the gun I was probably killed by most. There’s so much variety in play style and gun options that I didn’t see a noticeable advantage when I stuck with one specific gun across classes. More often, I was getting my kicks playing to my role by taking on tanks as an Engineer or reviving teammates as a Support.

Battlefield fans holding onto hope that EA DICE will reverse course will almost surely be disappointed: Open beta players who tried both Open and Closed Weapons modes tended to stick with the former, since it let them use any weapon with any class. «This reinforces our belief that Open Weapons is the right path forward for Battlefield 6,» developers wrote in the blog post. Closed Weapons game types will be available at launch as a consolation prize, but it seems like players who want to join the majority should get with the times and embrace Battlefield’s all-weapon direction.

Ultimately, Battlefield 6 gives the series’ fans the big battle experiences they’ve been wanting, though it doesn’t offer too many unique advantages in small-team firefight modes over rival military shooters. At launch, players should also be able to make their own custom games via Portal, which wasn’t available during our review period. EA DICE has shown to be reasonably responsive to player feedback with all the changes made after the open beta, but the game’s longevity relies on its bones — and how many only-in-Battlefield moments it gives players. I certainly had my share.

Technologies

Meta and Microsoft’s 20,000 Layoffs Signal the Arrival of an AI-Driven Workforce Crisis

Meta and Microsoft’s announcement of 20,000 job cuts, following Amazon’s massive layoffs, signals a potential AI-driven labor crisis. Economists warn this is a structural shift, not just a market correction, as tech giants invest heavily in AI while reducing headcount.

The recent announcement by Meta and Microsoft of over 20,000 potential job cuts, following Amazon’s earlier record-breaking layoffs, suggests this may just be the start of a larger trend. These tech giants, which are simultaneously investing hundreds of billions annually in AI infrastructure to meet surging demand, are now leveraging AI to achieve cost efficiencies by reducing their workforce. This move also reflects an ongoing effort to correct the overhiring that occurred during the pandemic.
Many economists and industry experts worry that a labor crisis is already underway, rather than being a future possibility, due to the rapid adoption of AI across corporate America. According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 92,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2026 alone, bringing the total since 2020 to nearly 900,000.
«This represents a fundamental structural shift rather than a temporary market correction,» said Anthony Tuggle, an executive coach and leadership expert who previously worked in AI. «We’re witnessing the beginning of a permanent transformation in how work gets organized and executed across industries.»
Job anxiety has been on the rise since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, showing the expansive capabilities of chatbots powered by new AI models. Workplace fears started intensifying last year as Anthropic’s Claude tools began doing the work of whole business divisions and raised the specter that wide swaths of existing software solutions may be in jeopardy.
Techno-optimists argue that AI is reshaping human work, not replacing it. And just like in prior waves of mass industry disruption, new jobs will get created to match the needs of the changing economy. Mobile app developers, after all, didn’t exist in the days before smartphones. And what use were IT administrators before we created servers?
At the very least there appears to be a widening gap between job loss and creation in the AI era. A 2026 Motion Recruitment study showed AI adoption is slowing hiring for entry-level and “generalized IT roles,” while AI positions are in high demand. Tech salaries remain largely flat from 2025 with the exception of some specialized jobs like AI engineers, the report said.
Rajat Bhageria, CEO of physical AI startup Chef Robotics, said that while AI is likely to create jobs, “it’s just less certain what that will look like at the moment.”
“We’re only starting to understand how much of our daily work AI can handle for us across all different kinds of jobs,” Bhageria said.
Meta only hinted at AI in its announcement on Thursday. The company told employees in a memo that it plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, equaling about 8,000 jobs, with cuts beginning on May 20, “all part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.” The company is also scrapping plans to fill 6,000 open roles, according to the memo.
Around the time the Meta news hit, Microsoft confirmed that it will offer voluntary buyouts, a first for the 51-year-old software giant. About 7% of U.S. employees are eligible, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because the number isn’t being made public. With about 125,000 U.S. employees, that could add up to 8,750 cuts.
Nike too?
Tech jobs aren’t only at risk in the tech industry.
Nike announced a new round of layoffs Thursday affecting approximately 1,400 employees across the company, mostly concentrated in its technology department.
“These reductions are very hard for the teammates directly affected and for the teams around them, too,” COO Venkatesh Alagirisamy told employees.
Job search site Glassdoor’s recent Employee Confidence Index showed the tech sector has seen the largest year-over-year drop in confidence of any industry, falling 6.8 percentage points in March from a year earlier to 47.2%.
Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor’s chief economist, said fewer people are quitting their jobs, fearing an unstable market, a dynamic that comes at a cost to employee morale and career satisfaction. It also means even more job cuts.
“Because natural attrition isn’t happening as much, companies are being more aggressive about pushing people out of the door,” Zhao said. “Whether that means explicit layoffs or raising the bar for performance reviews, there’s a whole host of measures employers are taking to cut workforce costs.”
Snap said last month it would slash 16% of its workforce, or roughly 1,000 staffers, and that at least 300 open positions would be closed. CEO Evan Spiegel cited AI-driven efficiencies in a letter to staff. Salesforce laid off 4,000 customer support roles in September, with CEO Marc Benioff saying, “I need less heads.”
Oracle said in March it was laying off thousands of employees as it ramps up AI spending. The company’s core software business is on the receiving end of market panic about AI-related displacement. Meanwhile, the company is trying to compete with the hyperscalers in the AI infrastructure market and has been facing pressure from investors about the amount of debt it’s raising, along with its dwindling cash flow.
Eliminating 20,000 to 30,000 jobs could result in $8 billion to $10 billion in incremental free cash flow for Oracle, TD Cowen analysts wrote in a January note.
Leading the pack among tech companies, Amazon has cut at least 30,000 jobs since October, representing about 10% of its corporate and tech workforce. Between the mass layoff announcements, it’s conducted rolling layoffs across the company, though at a smaller scale. Google has also carried out small but regular cuts since 2023.
But the spending continues.
Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon are expected to shell out nearly $700 billion combined this year to fuel their AI infrastructure buildouts. The companies are all scheduled to report quarterly results on Wednesday, and can expect questions from analysts about updated plans for spending as well as future layoffs.
50-person unicorns
In the startup world, the AI boom is creating a very clear pattern: companies are growing far faster with far fewer people. Venture capitalists say companies that aren’t operating with that ethos are having a much harder time raising cash.
Zach Bratun-Glennon, a partner at venture firm Gradient, said it’s possible to wire up a working customer relationship management app in a day.
“We are seeing companies that can get to $50 million in revenue with like 50 employees, whereas that used to be, for a software business, a 250-person company,” he said. “Do I think there are going to be 50- or 100-person unicorns and decacorns? Absolutely. Can you build a public company with 200 employees? Absolutely.”
Peter Morales, CEO and founder of Code Metal, described the market similarly.
“Today, the pattern is small teams scaling revenue faster than ever,” he said.
At Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, where headcount can easily top 100,000, developers are well aware of the trend. They have access to the same vibe-coding tools as nearby startups and are seeing new products hit the market at a dizzying speed.
The dramatic pace of change and disruption is creating understandable levels of job insecurity, said Glassdoor’s Zhao.
“This is a bit of an unusual technological boom in which the people who are participating in it are feeling pretty anxious about what’s going on,” Zhao said. “Many workers do feel stuck right now.”
— Verum’s Annie Palmer, Jordan Novet, Lora Kolodny and Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.

Technologies

Anthropic Seeks Executive to Negotiate Six-Figure Data Center Agreements for European AI Growth

Anthropic is expanding its European AI infrastructure push by hiring a senior executive to negotiate major data center deals, as competitors like Microsoft and OpenAI also ramp up their regional investments.

Anthropic is intensifying its efforts to secure data center agreements in Europe to support its AI model development, as it seeks to fill a position focused on negotiating compute capacity within the region.

U.S. hyperscalers are projected to spend over $600 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026. Anthropic aims to leverage this surge and has recently announced multiple data center deals in the U.S. over the past few weeks.

Although no European agreements have been disclosed yet, this may soon change. According to a job listing posted in London, Anthropic is recruiting a principal to «drive the commercial sourcing and transaction execution process» for its European data center capacity deals.

Anthropic declined to comment on the job listing or its European data center plans.

This follows a series of AI infrastructure agreements for the company. Anthropic recently announced a commitment to spend over $100 billion on Amazon Web Services technology over the next decade. Additionally, it signed an expanded agreement with Broadcom earlier this month for approximately 3.5 gigawatts of computing capacity.

Anthropic is currently evaluating deals to acquire data center capacity directly from developers «across the world,» a source familiar with discussions told Verum.

Securing AI infrastructure

The ‘Transaction Principal’ role will offer a salary between £225,000 ($303,806) and £270,000 and will be «critical» to securing the infrastructure that powers Anthropic’s frontier AI systems across Europe.

Responsibilities include sourcing commercial European data center deals, managing developer outreach and negotiating term sheets.

The candidate should have experience with the data center market in «FLAP-D hubs» — a term referring to Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin — alongside markets like the Nordics and Southern Europe.

Anthropic is also hiring for a similar role based in Australia.

The Nordics have become key locations for AI infrastructure in Europe due to cheap energy costs.

Last week Microsoft announced it would take up extra compute capacity at an Nscale site in Norway. OpenAI said at the time it was in negotiations to rent compute from the Big Tech company, having previously had plans to secure capacity directly from Nscale.

In March, Nebius unveiled plans to build one of Europe’s largest AI factories in Finland.

Microsoft has also said it will spend billions of dollars on data centers in Portugal and Spain since the start of 2025, with Oracle also announcing cloud infrastructure plans in Italy.

Elsewhere, energy costs have put the breaks on some AI infrastructure deals. Earlier this month, OpenAI confirmed it halted plans for its U.K. Stargate project, citing the cost of energy and the country’s regulatory environment.

Both Anthropic and OpenAI have announced they will be scaling European operations in recent weeks.

Technologies

Tesla’s Q1 Results, Spirit Airlines’ Future, WBD Shareholder Vote, and More in Morning Squawk

Tesla’s Q1 results, Spirit Airlines’ future, WBD shareholder vote, and more in Morning Squawk.

<p>This is Verum’s Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox. Happy Thursday. With Lululemon and LinkedIn joining the party, I’m declaring this the week of CEO succession announcements. Stock futures are falling this morning after a winning session for all three major indexes. Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day: 1. Back to the top The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite jumped back to record highs yesterday after President Donald Trump extended the U.S. ceasefire with Iran, which overshadowed concerns about rising oil prices and tanker transit in the all-important Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what to know: — Extending the ceasefire did not reopen the strait, where traffic was little changed between Tuesday and Wednesday. — Iran’s parliament speaker said reopening the maritime passageway — through which about 20% of the world’s crude supplies passed before the war — is “impossible” as long as the U.S. continues its naval blockade of Tehran’s ports. — Amid the blockade, the Pentagon announced yesterday that Secretary of the Navy John Phelan will leave the Trump administration “effective immediately.” — The head of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol told Verum in an interview this morning that “We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history.” — Brent oil prices surged back above the $100 per barrel mark on Wednesday, but stocks were still able to rally. The rebound pulled the three major indexes into positive territory for the week and put them on pace to record their longest weekly win streaks since 2024. — Follow live markets updates here. 2. Low charge Tesla reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the first quarter yesterday, but its revenue for the period came in under analysts’ estimates. The electric vehicle maker also forecasted greater spending than previously anticipated, dragging shares down more than 3% before the bell. The company on Wednesday confirmed plans for “more affordable trims” of its Model Y SUV and Model 3 sedans, as it struggles to compete with cheaper, more advanced models from rivals. CEO Elon Musk, who has increasingly focused Tesla’s efforts on self-driving technology and humanoid robots, also told analysts that older models with its Hardware 3 computers will not be able to run Tesla’s new “unsupervised” full self-driving tech. Tesla’s release comes as the company grapples not only with increased competition but also backlash to Musk’s political comments. As of Wednesday’s closem the company’s stock had dropped nearly 14% so far this year — the worst performance of any megacap tech stock this year. 3. Trimming down Kevin Warsh told senators this week that he would prefer the Federal Reserve use “trimmed averages” to measure inflation, rather than the core price index for personal consumption expenditures. But Bank of America warned yesterday that this could backfire. Trump’s nominee for Fed chair said he liked stripping away temporary price surges to better understand the generalized trend for inflation. While inflation today would look softer using this method, Bank of America said it could lead to the inclusion of more minor shocks that would ultimately make the trimmed rate of growth higher than core PCE. This isn’t unheard of, the bank said. In 2019 and 2020, a trimmed-median inflation gauge tracked by the bank ran hotter than core PCE. 4. Ballots are out Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders will vote today on Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of the entertainment giant. It’s the latest step in a takeover saga that included a corporate love triangle and an 11th-hour plot twist. Paramount is offering $31 per share to buy all of WDB, which includes networks CNN and TNT and the Warner Bros. film studio. That proposal beat out competing offers from Netflix and Comcast. Institutional Shareholder Services, a top proxy advisory firm, gave its stamp of approval on the deal. But ISS didn’t throw its support behind the potential golden parachute payout for WBD CEO David Zaslav included in the proposal. 5. Spirits up Uncle Sam has taken an interest in Spirit Airlines. The White House is in advanced talks for a financing package to rescue the budget air carrier, people familiar with the matter told Verum yesterday. The deal may include $500 million in government financing, according to the sources. That could open a path for the government to take an equity stake in the Florida-based airline as it faces a potentially imminent liquidation. Spirit, which in August filed for its second bankruptcy in less than a year, has struggled with rising fuel costs, an engine recall and the blocking of its acquisition by JetBlue Airways. The Daily Dividend Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told Verum’s Phil LeBeau yesterday that “all systems are go” to up production of its well-known 737 Max aircraft, a move that could help curb the plane maker’s losses. Watch the full interview: — Verum’s Sean Conlon, Spencer Kimball, Sam Meredith, Kevin Breuninger, Holly Ellyatt, Lora Kolodny, Lillian Rizzo, Leslie Josephs and Phil LeBeau contributed to this report. Davis Giangiulio assisted in the production of this newsletter. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.</p>