In the 15 years or so that I've played Battlefield, I've treated it as an FPS first and a strategy game second. Follow my logic: yes, it's heavily objective-based and winning revolves around playing to a bigger picture, but that doesn't matter if you can't kill the enemy in front of you before getting shot to pieces. But in Battlefield 6, I've been inverting that order – determined to see just how much I can impact my team's chances of victory.
That doesn't mean I'm blindly running into objectives like a lemming, nor does it mean I'm sitting back with a sniper trying to get as many kills as possible. I'm calling the tactic Big Brain Battlefield, and the secret? Er… mostly just playing Support.
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Battlefield 6 review: "More refined than innovative, this FPS is on target with multiplayer even if its campaign is just a big shrug"
When you look at Battlefield 6 maps in comparison to Call of Duty's usual style, you can see how both games push in different directions. In Call of Duty, the goal for a map is typically to formulate the gnarliest stream of combat possible. Elements of that are there in Battlefield, particularly with the quicker pacing of Battlefield 6, but EA's shooter series is more about facilitating stories – like overcoming the choking ascent of Liberation Peak's final stage in Attack/Defense modes, or merely surviving Mirak Valley's WW1-like opening charge.
Playing as Support, I've realized how often you can tip the scales in encounters like these. Despite the name of the class implying otherwise, you are essentially the playmaker. Reviving players with defibrillators doesn't just stop your tickets from bleeding – it maintains the frontline of a match, and a window without revives causes a lull in momentum that sinks even the best offensives or dug-in defenses. That alone is a powerful ability, but it's just one tool in Support's arsenal.
Though Battlefield 6's open weapons system means any class can be paired with any weapon, LMGs are still the perfect fit for Support thanks to their ammo-replenishing supply packs. The combination lets you turn into a bullet-spitting machine – though I wish more players knew the value in doing so. Suppression remains deeply underrated in Battlefield 6, partly because it's been less effective in recent entries, but entire matches can be won with just one player providing good covering fire.
I've fallen in love with the M60, modified slightly to work better at longer distances, because of how ludicrously fun it is to post up somewhere and hold down the trigger. The bipod lets you get to work with near-zero recoil, but in truth it doesn't actually matter if you miss more shots than not. The important thing is just being there, the final boss of whatever vantage point you've settled into, hosing down anyone who dares to stick their head up (and raking up that sweet yet insultingly low suppression exp while doing so).
But Support has even more tools designed to control the push and pull of a match, leading us to the pièce de résistance: smoke grenades. Being able to blind an enemy is outrageously useful, and if you have the good graces to be matched with a team whose Pavlovian response is to charge as soon as they see a smoke grenade, you're already a good way toward winning.
Jack of all trades
Frankly, it's wild that Support packs so much power into one kit. The only other class that comes close to matching that value is Engineer; the unsung heroes who deal with tanks so we don't have to. Still, Support remains Battlefield 6's all-purpose infantry – a walking font of smoke, bullets, supplies, and revives.
With so much power at my fingertips, I've found that Support has changed the way I play Battlefield 6 for the better. I've been taking more initiative in matches, and thinking more about the series' strategic layer. Instead of blindly following my team into unfavorable choke points, I've been spending more time looking for the best angles to smoke – remember to cover your flanks! – and keeping an eye on the minimap.
It can be very hard for attackers to break onto the objective when they're being funneled into a meat grinder, but glancing at the minimap usually reveals the best way to crack an objective – look for gaps with the fewest radar pings, and try to hit them with your squad. And remember: the goal isn't to Solid Snake your way onto a point and snag it yourself, but to unclog the way there for the rest of your team to pour through.
Perhaps little of this will come as a surprise to series veterans. But as someone who's been playing since the days of Bad Company, I've found that measured individualism – and keeping the big picture in mind for every match – allows you to have a surprising amount of pull in Battlefield 6. It's a haphazardly-disguised strategy game, if you can see the cogs for the explosions.
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