If the Battlefield series has ever been known for one thing, it’s the massive, chaotic scale of destruction that takes place in its largest multiplayer maps, and I got a wonderfully refreshing taste of just that when I dove into Battlefield 6’s upcoming 64-player game modes earlier this week. Mirak Valley, the biggest map available at launch, is a fantastic new warzone that reminds me a bit of a much bigger version of Blood Gulch from Halo, with two bases on each side battling it out in a massive, deadly no man’s land, while a remastered version of the iconic Operation Firestorm from Battlefield 3 made an appearance to kick me right in the nostalgia. Both were a literal blast to play, each in their own way, and it just felt so good to be back in large scale war games with bombs exploding and bullets flying every which way, especially with the environments being more destructible than ever and which alter the map in creative ways. Since I skipped Battlefield 2042, it’s been a good, long while since I felt the itch to play a military shooter with this kind of crazy player count, and after a few hours with Battlefield 6 I don’t know how I’ve managed to go so long without it. It feels good to be back!As I Walk Through the Valley…The first map I played was Mirak Valley, which Battlefield Studios says will be the largest map at launch, and yeah, this thing’s pretty huge. Though it’s got small settlements and rocky terrain across long stretches of dirt road on each side, the main attraction are the two unfinished skyscrapers found in the center of the map where a lot of the action takes place. Battling in these claustrophobic concrete boxes and stairwells allows for plenty of close-quarters gunplay, but with unfinished walls all around you, it also leaves you exposed to the outside world to snipe you of launch a missile in your direction, which adds a unique challenge as you attempt to capture the all-important zones found in each of the buildings. And while the gradual destruction of these buildings can make them harder to control, they also allow for interesting opportunities to alter the geometry of the map, like how part of a destroyed building can fall down to create a ramp, which can then be used to reach the second floor of the skyscraper from the outside and make it much easier to navigate (but also harder to defend from would-be invaders).Mirak Valley ended up easily being my favorite of the two maps I played, both because it’s a fantastically well-designed and ridiculously large warzone to master, but also because of these moments where the new destruction engine makes itself so clearly known. For example, in one match I spent a lot of time in a small two-story building picking off the enemy from a distance and trying to remain hidden, but over the course of the match (and many deaths) the building I was in continued to lose pieces of itself until there was almost nothing left. The window I was shooting out of at the start became half of a wall absent a room, which then fell away as I retreated to a staircase, until there was almost none of the structure left by the end of the battle and I found myself peering out behind rubble to take my shots. Moments like that are an excellent showcasing of just how much mayhem you can cause over the course of the match, all of it which organically takes place over the course of battle instead of being pre-determined events that inevitably happen every match.Into the Fire(storm)After not nearly enough time exploring (and blowing up) Mirak Valley, we moved on to more familiar terrain with the returning Battlefield 3 map of Operation Firestorm. If you’ve never played this one before, it takes place on an oil refinery with a big warehouse where you can get your fill of close-range encounters, or you can take the the labyrinth of metal stairs and walkways that is the refinery itself, complete with the unforgettable giant fuel tanks that explode in gobsmackingly beautiful fashion with a little provocation from the business end of your assault rifle. The return of this map is sure to bring back fond memories of good times had and bitter rivals slain, but it was noticeable to me how some of the legacy map design choices didn’t exactly jive with modern day multiplayer expectations. To their credit, Battlefield Studios certainly made some adjustments to line of sight, destructible setpieces, and the available combat lanes you can use to take it to the bad guys, but they also had to keep a lot the same to make it recognizable as the map we know and love. That means there are plenty of barren areas you’ll have to run through, especially on the outskirts of the arena, where you’ll be wide open for someone to pick you off without much trouble or simply be a bit bored waiting to get to your destination with not much to do along the way.That said, the virtues of this map are still as clear as ever, especially the long-range potential of the refinery’s elevated walkways, which are a sniper’s dream that I took full advantage of. Plus, being able to blow up key parts of the warehouse to do things like kill the prone enemies hidden on the rooftop by blasting away part of the ceiling and shooting them through it, is just *chef’s kiss*. It definitely didn’t click with me as much as the sparkly, new Mirak Valley though, especially since this Battlefield 3 throwback feels like such a tiny arena by comparison.On TargetNo matter which map I was on though, I was consistently impressed by how good Battlefield 6 felt, whether it was the customizable character classes, more grounded gunplay, or the handful of game modes that put my combat prowess to the test. Each of the four classes – Assault, Support, Recon, and Engineer – have their advantages that made it difficult to stick to any one, like how easy it was to get my teammates back in the fight with the support class, or how awesome it was to have sniper dummies to distract my enemies as the Recon class. One cool aspect though, is that I was able to swap out weapons I preferred with one class when I decided to change over, like how I gave my Assault character the Support character’s machine gun so I wouldn’t have to bother reloading in between kills (and because I tend to play more stationary than most and so didn’t mind the list accuracy). This felt like a nice middle ground between locking classes out of using the arsenal not natively a part of their class, since gadgets and unique abilities were still exclusive, but weapons could be freely traded, and I got a kick out of experimenting with different combinations.I also really appreciated some of the adjustments to gunplay that made engagements a bit less goofy, like how accuracy with weapons is diminished while in motion, or especially when midair or jumping around. This meant I saw less of players bouncing up and down cartoonishly to kill me, which always feels out of place in a military shooter that’s aiming for some level of realism. Don’t get me wrong, there was still plenty of couch spamming and ducking in and out of corners to get shots off, and mastering mobility certainly plays a role in your ability to dominate the competition, but I also felt more rewarded for calming taking my shot against players scrambling around wildly to evade me.The game modes we played on each map were variations of area control game types we’ve seen before and one new one that added a heavy helping of chaos. Conquest served as the classic game of maintaining control of as many key parts of the map as possible while scoring kills, while Breakthrough put one team on the offense to take control of specific regions of the warzone that the other team fought to defend. Escalation, on the other hand, has an interesting concept where throughout the match the capture points in play are gradually reduced, forcing conflict onto certain parts of the terrain that directs the flow of battle and reduces stalling. This made for absolute chaos as everyone rushed to certain areas for all-out warfare that usually just involved lots of tanks blowing everything to smithereens, and was maybe not as balanced as the more vanilla game modes, but damn if it didn’t make for a hilarious time.