BATTLEFIELD COMBAT - GUNPLAY

Table of Contents:

• Battlefield Combat - A Brand New Deep Dive Series
• Gunplay Depth
  • Distance and Drag
• Time to Kill - TTK
  • Body Damage Multiplier Changes
  • Sniper Sweet Spots
• Recap: FAQ of Upcoming Changes 
• Future Battlefield Combat Updates

Hey everyone,

On behalf of Battlefield Studios, we are David Sirland, Senior Producer, and Florian Le Bihan, Principal Game Designer.

Since launch, we’ve spent a lot of time pouring over the data and feedback coming in from players all around the world, both in Battlefield Labs and in the live version of the game, to determine how we can evolve both Battlefield 6 and REDSEC. 

You’ve already seen some of that recently with our seasonal content, including the recent launch of Railway to Golmud – our biggest map in Battlefield yet – as well as the start of our Ranked Play experience in REDSEC.  But growing a game like this means more than just adding content: it’s about revisiting your initial vision and having honest conversations about how it should change. Determining these revisions are especially important when it comes to the core of what defines Battlefield: its combat.

To that end, we’re debuting Battlefield Combat, a content series dedicated to sharing our vision for combat and how we’re evolving it over time. 

Today is all about gunplay.

In our next Battlefield 6 and REDSEC update on June 30, the Season 3 High-Value Target Update 1.3.3.0, we are making changes to gunplay depth and Time to Kill (TTK) based on your feedback, as we implement tweaks to recoil, bullet deviation, muzzle velocity, and body part damage multipliers.

Here’s an inside look at the discussions we have at Battlefield Studios around gunplay and the specific changes to come in Update 1.3.3.0:

Mastering gunplay comes down to three skills: aiming, recoil compensation, and weapon knowledge. 

Aiming is, of course, a foundational skill to succeed in a gunfight. However, to master automatic weapons, you'll need to embrace and master deeper shooting techniques, such as compensating for recoil and bursting shots.

As part of our changes for combat, we’ve done a wide pass across weapons to make recoil directions more consistent & predictable,

Above is an example of the recoil changes with the SOR-556 MK2 Assault Rifle.  Before our next update, recoil for this weapon - and dozens of other automatic Primaries - had higher variation in direction and intensity than we'd like, making it difficult to learn to master.

Our change reduces this variation significantly. We think some variation is necessary to keep weapons balanced and to avoid having one weapon that becomes the default choice for everyone.  However, with this update, recoil is easier to master, and we cannot wait for you to feel the difference.

To reward proper shooting technique, we've slightly increased bullet deviation after the first shot, making controlled bursts or tap fire even more important to stay accurate at longer distances, while keeping full auto viable for close quarters combat.

Distance and Drag

We want to make long range engagements more interesting. While initial muzzle velocities and bullet drop are tuned to keep medium range combat snappy and responsive, increased bullet drag causes projectiles to lose velocity and drop significantly past 150 meters.

This preserves tactical clarity at standard combat distances while ensuring that extreme-range sniping requires immense skill, calculation, and deliberate weapon customization.

We have decreased muzzle velocity for most weapons, especially SMGs, and tuned bullet drag to make anticipating the movement of targets more important.

The final skill to master gunplay is weapon knowledge.  You need to understand the character of each weapon which starts by learning each archetype. For example SMGs are high-mobility powerhouses and LMGs are heavy position anchors. Within each archetype, each weapon has additional defining characteristics, which can be tuned by customizing its attachments to best fit your skill and playstyle.

TIME TO KILL - TTK

Time to Kill (TTK) is core to infantry combat pacing, influenced by both weapon balance and player skill. 

Our TTK benchmark in close-quarters runs between 200 and 300 milliseconds for automatic primary weapons, similar to the TTK in Battlefield 3 and 4, but with some room for outliers (for example: faster TTK weapons that are harder to control).  

This is key to allowing players to have a chance when they're outnumbered: To successfully win a one-versus-two engagement when flanking, you must be mathematically capable of quickly disposing of the first unaware target.  If we slowed that baseline range down to 300-400 milliseconds, winning outnumbered fights would become nearly impossible.

To increase depth of gunplay and better reward mastery of its mechanics, we wanted to slow down average TTK without affecting the best possible TTK. We did this by adjusting damage multipliers depending on where the bullets strike their target.

Body Damage Multiplier Changes

Proper shooting technique involves aiming for center mass, even though a “skillshot” to the head does the most damage. 

However, up until this update, weapon damage values were similar, or the exact same, across any body part but the head. In other words, a shot to the chest did the same (or similar) damage as a shot to the leg or arm. This decision not only significantly impacted TTK, but also made our players feel unrewarded for accurate shooting, a root cause of shallow gameplay depth.

We’ve heard community feedback loud and clear: as of this next update, damage to limbs and lower torso has been reduced for all weapon classes except for Shotguns and Sidearms.  This change generally increases the amount of shots to kill by one when primarily hitting these areas, but landing headshots will compensate for the lower damage dealt to limbs and lower torso. We’ll also be exploring body damage multiplier changes for long-distance engagements in future Labs tests.

These multipliers - and changes to these values - vary by weapon category.  The most substantial example is with Sniper Rifles, powerful tools that demand precision in exchange for high damage per shot.  Compared to other weapon categories, we’ve added more significant penalties to Sniper Rifle shots to the lower abdomen, leg, and arm shots.

Shotguns and Sidearms are the exception. Shotgun sprays naturally hit limbs, unless it’s a skillshot from a Slug round.  Sidearms, meanwhile, are not meant to replace Primary Weapons, making any damage decrease potentially catastrophic for those quick-switch moments or opening seconds of a Battle Royale.

As for all automatic Primary Weapons, we not only nerfed damage to the extremities and lower torso, but also slightly increased their headshot damage multipliers.  Combined with the recoil changes, this incentivizes players to keep their aim on the head and chest.  And, as our players know, this kind of pinpoint accuracy can be further rewarded through customization, which circles back to our discussion on Weapon Character.

For players who want to fully commit to an aggressive headshot build, they can spend a portion of their Attachment Points budget to equip Hollow Point or Synthetic Tip Ammunition.  These attachments increase the headshot multiplier up to 1.50x or 1.75x (or, as of this upcoming update, 1.57x to 1.8x for automatic weapons), reducing the requirement to down an enemy with precision shots…  But all at the cost of better penetration, both through destructible environment pieces and through bodies, both friendly and enemy.

This creates a clear skill economy and further our Weapon Character philosophy.  Players can opt out of headshots and spend their Attachment Point budget on lowering recoil or increasing magazine size, creating a higher floor for damage rather than shooting for a headshot-heavy ceiling.

Sniper “Sweet Spots”

One last note on damage multipliers: since launch, each Sniper Rifle except for the Mini Scout has a “Sweet Spot” where it deals increased damage - lethal in Multiplayer - at a specific range. 

The “Sweet Spot” range for each weapon is reflected in the in-game description; in combat, if you spot a rainbow tinted Sniper Rifle glint, it means you are in the sniper’s “Sweet Spot.”  As a sniper, proper pinging will reveal if your target is within “Sweet Spot”range.

After looking at combat data, we found the “Sweet Spot” ranges were too generous with too much overlap.  Therefore, we are making the following reductions and changes:

• SV-98: From 54-90m to 54-75m
• M2010 ESR: From 75-120m to 75-100m
• PSR: From 100-150m to 90-120m
• L115: From 120-175m to 100-133m 
• Mini Scout: N/A (No “Sweet Spot”; by design, it’s meant for fast follow-up shots)

This should benefit those with weapon knowledge: players who know the “Sweet Spot” can reposition and land a more reliable one-shot kill. 

RECAP - FAQ OF UPCOMING CHANGES

So, what can you expect out of Update 1.3.3.0? Let’s keep it simple:

QUESTION: Will recoil be more predictable in Battlefield 6 and REDSEC?

ANSWER: Yes; we are making recoil direction more consistent and predictable.

QUESTION: Is bullet spread being increased at long range?

ANSWER: Yes, in order to maintain weapon character and penalize bad trigger discipline alongside extreme movements.

QUESTION: What is happening to hitbox multipliers?

ANSWER: Damage to the limbs - arms and legs - are being reduced across nearly all weapons, which should further reward accurate body and head shots.

QUESTION: Are Sniper Rifle “Sweet Spot” ranges being reduced?

ANSWER: Yes - all Sniper Rifles with a “Sweet Spot” will see a range reduction and shift depending on the weapon. The new values are as follows:

• SV-98: 54-75m
• M2010 ESR: 75-100m
• PSR: From 90-120m
• L115: From 100-133m 

FUTURE BATTLEFIELD COMBAT UPDATES

We hope you’ve enjoyed this deep-dive into all the work that goes into Battlefield’s gunplay.

By tying weapon character, deep shooting mechanics, and combat pacing into a single, cohesive system, our goal is to deliver an experience where your loadout choice matters, your mechanical execution is rewarded, and every single kill feels earned.

In future installments of Battlefield Combat, we’ll be taking a deeper look at vehicle play, gadgets, and more.

In the meantime, we hope you continue to enjoy your time with Railway to Golmud, Cairo Bazaar, and the rest of Season 3’s offerings as we gear up for the release of Naval Warfare with Season 4. 

And as always, thank you for your continued feedback and for being part of the community. 

This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.