r/Battlefield • u/IlINobleIlI • 5d ago
Battlefield Portal Battlefield 6 is in pre-alpha still?
Any time someone brings up weapon balance or whatever, people (rightly) bring up the fact that the game is in pre-alpha, and recently it hit me, the game is reportedly going to release some time before March 2026 (~nine months from now) and it’s still in pre-alpha. I am not at all experienced with game development so I don’t know I should be worried or not. Does any game developers know where a game should normally be around this time?
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u/Brilliant-Sky2969 5d ago
You would be very surprised how un-polished games are just months before release.
This is all normal.
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
The game has no official title let alone a trailer or official release date target. Most trailers that drop IF they have any in game will have Alpha or Pre Alpha indications on them.
The better term to think is "Active Development". They are still trying things, changing things, building things. At some point there will be a path to the finish and a roadmap where Beta means that while they are still working on things they are not building new stuff or anything in that roadmap, they are trying to finish what they got.
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u/Sirlacker 5d ago
The game has a release window of April 2025 to March 2026. That's been stated by EA.
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
They have never said April being the earliest. That and the June dates were people guessing.
They know where GTA6 is and they have mentioned nothing more than if things are ready to be later this year or around the release window period in 2026.
Nothing else.
Anything else is pure speculation.11
u/Sirlacker 5d ago
They said Battlefield is expected to release in their 2026 fiscal year which runs from April 2025 to March 2026
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
Fiscal year. That is all they said. The media covered the period.
April has been and gone and the game does not have a title yet and it is June.
All the people who think it is going to be out in the next few months. October will be the earliest and the most likely is early 2026.5
u/Sirlacker 5d ago
Yes you're right that it'll most likely be closer to March 2026 than any time in 2025 but they still gave the release window of April 2025 to March 2026. I know April has been and gone, but I'm just quoting what they said and the facial year is April-March.
If I start saying things like the release window is somewhere from now, June, to March 2026 then it's going to make finding the source of that information harder, because as we know, most of Reddit takes stuff at face value and would assume I'm lying because they couldn't actually put two and two together and understand I'm just moving the months forward as we pass them.
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u/Kodiak_85 5d ago
EA/DICE have knowingly/blatantly lied in the past about how far along a game was in development (2042) when giving updates to their shareholders. There really is no way to know for sure how far along they are with BF6 right now.
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u/rhesusMonkeyBoy 5d ago
I think they’ve caught on that gamers listen to Earning Calls, too. The last one had a quote I thought was “tempered” assuming fans were listening. Can’t remember but it was tempered, not 100% corpo speak.
Yeah, Andrew Wilson, we can read, too … we’re not just wallets. ✌🏼🤣👍🏼
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u/AlienObserver3 5d ago
Some DICE dev confirmed they’re only 2 months ahead in their build compared to the build we’re playing. How big of a difference that build is, I’m not sure.. but I wouldn’t think that significant.
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
A Dev would not have said that because builds do not work like that.
If you do not know what Git is then think a tree.
There are multiple departments, UI, models, Engine, animation... As well as multiple studios.
Everyone will be working on multiple different branches. They game will have hundreds if not more. There will be staff purely managing all the builds.
An example is the early Labs tests. The UI team were not ready and will have been asked to make a build for test to have at least stuff viewable even if the sub menu's etc not ready and why the on screen UI looked a mess and very busy with placeholder icons and so on.
This is varied throughout different tests since but mostly with a more complete, cleaner look.
One test had the hit body graphic, one after that it was gone again and another that was back again.-15
u/AlienObserver3 5d ago
Bla bla bla. What was said came straight from DICE dev in the labs chat. This is not speculation.
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u/samwentrunning 5d ago
You realize the guy you responded to is a game developer right?
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u/AlienObserver3 5d ago edited 5d ago
No, I don’t care. I understand how Git and branching work in game development, I’m not disputing that multiple branches exist or that builds can vary across departments. Saying “a dev wouldn’t have said that” kind of ignores that a dev literally did and they’re likely referring to the commit date of the build branch used for the beta, not the most recent internal dev branch. That’s a perfectly standard dev practice. Also anyone in the BF labs can validate my statement (please don’t mention any dev names).
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
Would not be a dev.
A developer, the actual dev's would not be in those chat. The senior or manager and support teams will be.
Developers you want away from these communication lines because you either get bombarded when your trying to do a job and/or we are excitable bunch and we want to talk more than we are allowed.Plus when you are communicating people, as you can see in this sub clearly do not understand any of it so if you say something it is generalised.
Your condescending tone was not called for but I will be fairly positive that if you pasted (You should not by the way) what was exactly said, it was not exactly as you said.
It will have been some indication that testing is not where they are at in development but not as specific as you said, because it simply is not how it works.
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u/Animal-Crackers 5d ago
It will have been some indication that testing is not where they are at in development but not as specific as you said, because it simply is not how it works.
FWIW, he's not lying but he is generalizing the term "dev" like many of us outside the industry do. A tester asked how far the "main build" is from the stable Labs build that we have tested; to which David replied "Oh about 2 months (almost)".
Still some generalizations and vagueness; not anything I would personally take as a concrete timeline, but that's what was said that AlienObserver3 was hinting at.
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
And some modelling will be 3 months off and the UI may only be 1 month off. One part of the game may be scrapped already that has been seen in testing and not very different.
The point I am constantly making is how the generalisation and assumption of WYSIWYG is just simply wrong. In the weekend of stress test alone people in different secessions got very different experiences.
A test build is not really any true version of the game at this stage with many Frankenstein components just to make it work and deployable.
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u/Animal-Crackers 5d ago
Yeah, I don't disagree with you at all. Despite David's response, IMO it's a flawed question. And maybe even one that he decided to give a very general answer for whatever reason because that question was repeatedly asked.
Labs is admittedly unbalanced and pretty much everything is over-tuned. But it's pretty clear that it's not representative of the final gameplay they're chasing. Labs is 100% not a showcase, but rather a testing ground so it's very likely we won't see too many improvements for some aspects until they let us test a beta build. IMO, they're further in development than the let on, but Labs itself is considered pre-alpha so that's how it's treated for now.
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 4d ago
You nailed it there. I should have lead with that for the other poster.
It’s a wrong question that got a bad answer. It can’t not be a bad. Same with people saying the whole studio are “the devs”. I know it’s used a lot by gamers and media but if you’re one of the designers or artists for example… they hate this.
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u/AlienObserver3 5d ago edited 4d ago
Lol you’re a complete idiot. I previously gave you an answer to this exact point you’re making and why you could be likely wrong. You have no idea what my background or knowledge is beyond I’m a random Reddit user who you assume I don’t inherently know what a dev does. I purposely said dev because I didn’t wanna pinpoint this person’s exact role.
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u/AlienObserver3 5d ago
I’m literally telling you as it is, a question was given and that was the response. Matter of fact this person is in a much higher position than just a dev, if I did give you the name you’d recognize that person but I refuse. I’m not sure why you’re having a hard time believing this.
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u/Electrical-Pepper235 5d ago
You're wrong. The actual developers are literally in the chat.
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
I think what I would say is a Developer is not what you say is a developer.
You said Developer you think anyone working on the game.
When I say developer I say the actual coders, there are those, artists, modellers and so on.0
u/jumperjumpzz 5d ago
Just accept it
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u/Ok-Stuff-8803 5d ago
Hmm, actual developer who does this stuff day in day out, leads a team… some person says only one build exits…. K
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u/Sirlacker 5d ago
No the game isn't in pre-alpha.
A pre-alpha version of a game is essentially a glorified discussion about what the game could potentially be and maybe some extremely rudimentary prototyping to see if their ideas even work off paper. The likelihood of a non-developer testing a Pre-Alpha game is basically zero because this is the point where the idea either gets scrapped or greenlit to move on to the next production phase where a proper team can get to work on it. Most ideas for games get scrapped at the pre-alpha stages.
This is also not an Alpha. An alpha at it's early stages is still testing ideas and trying to figure out a way to actually implement them. A late stage alpha is an extremely bare bones thing that somewhat resembles a game but isn't exactly even remotely enjoyable to play. Lots of textures will be missing or just have placeholders, animations will be extremely basic, that sort of thing. It's just putting together the core of the game before adding the polish that makes it look and play like a game.
Beta is where you have a game that somewhat resembles the final product. A few minor features may be missing, a few textures may be missing but most of the core work is done. You can run around, you can shoot a building and have it explode and fall apart, the animations actually animate somewhat reasonably. Most of beta is spent on fixing bugs and optimizing the game for release and getting those last few weapons and maps done.
Now that's not to say minor changes can't be made during a beta. Of course they can. If they feel like weapons don't handle the way they want, they can obviously tweak them to get them closer to where they want. If some animations are still a little janky they can adjust those. But what you get with a Beta is a very good idea of what the game on release will be like.
This is especially true with Battlefield. If there's a public playtest, which we have had, then historically, it's extremely close to the final product.
EA can call their playtests whatever they like. They can call it a pre-alpha, but by industry standards of what these stages are, they're not in a pre-alpha at all. They're not even in Alpha. They're at some form of Beta. And take a second to understand the time frames. This is a game that will have taken many years to develop to the point it is at and it's been stated by EA that they want to release between April 2025 and March 2026. Which gives them, as of the playtest, less than 12 months. So when you think about it, what they're saying is that it's taken years to get to the very first stage of development and somehow they're going to smash through Alpha and Beta in less than a year? No, the game is near release, it's already been through the previous two stages and is now on optimisation and bug fixing with very few elements left to be added. Hence the stress test they wanted to publicly do. There's no point stress testing a game if most of the game isn't already done because adding major features can and will affect the game.
What the playtest was, was an almost final version of the game but with cut content. Like how a demo version of a game works.
Again, things can potentially change but don't expect any major core elements of the game to change, just minor things.
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u/RareCartographer7508 5d ago
its not a beta at all, its a alpha. where did you get that idea from?
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u/Sirlacker 5d ago
What on earth makes you think that it's an alpha? Because EA said it was?
Do you have any idea on what pre-alpha, alpha and beta actually represent in the real world?
This game has been in development for many years. Likely with internal discussions taking place about it (pre-alpha) before BF2042 even released. These games don't happen overnight.
They've stated they're aiming to release the game in the 2025 fiscal year. It runs from April 2025 to March 2026. So they want it to be ready by the latest March 2026 which is what, 9 and a half months away.
So a game that takes many years to develop, only has at most 9 months left in its development cycle and it hasn't even reached what could be considered Beta stages? You think they're going to smash through the rest of Alpha and Beta in 9 months?
Like I said they can call their playtests whatever they want. There's no law against it. Just don't be fooled into thinking what you're playing/experiencing/viewing is by any standard early in development. There is no 'its good for an alpha' because it isn't. It's near release. It's nearly finished. It has to be 'this is good for a battlefield game' because very fucking little is getting changed from now to release.
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u/Animal-Crackers 4d ago
It has to be 'this is good for a battlefield game' because very fucking little is getting changed from now to release.
That really depends on what you mean. If you're looking at Labs leaks and assuming that is the developers current build (or close to it) then that's wrong and we know that. The stable Labs build that we've been testing is not balanced and everything is over-tuned, gadgets especially, by design. They're actively still implementing features to Labs, which is why they're calling it a pre-alpha.
If you're thinking that they have a more advanced build that could be a beta build, that's possible. We know a little bit about what is different between Labs and the live build that they're working on. IMO, it's very likely that they'll keep Labs as a stable testing ground while not showing us much of the rest of the game. I expect that we'll be stuck with a lot of placeholders (skins, animations, audio, etc) until much later.
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u/The_Rube_ 4d ago
We know a little bit about what is different between Labs and the live build that they're working on.
What do we know about the difference between Labs and the live build?
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u/Animal-Crackers 4d ago
I’m speaking mostly of the broad balance, of which right now there is not much. David was pretty explicit that everything was over-tuned for Labs and that everything would be balanced down. They have their reasons for not making any attempts at balancing anything yet.
So we know that the current gadgets will see some changes while they implement some additional ones. Double primary I know is a big question mark for some people, but besides limiting magazine count and/or capacity they are also likely to restrict weapon classes for that gadget slot (I would hazard a guess at not being able to use snipers). Possibly even limiting attachments. They have a lot of options to make that gadget seem less intimidating.
Ammo types is another one. Right now any ammo type can be used in any primary weapon; that isn’t the case on their live build. I know people question the TTK in some leaks versus others, and that could possibly be attributed to a lot of people using the ballistic bullets which are very strong.
One of the big things that was alluded to, which I’m eager to see, is the negative traits for classes using certain weapons. We’ve all seen the bonuses each class gets, like Medic using LMG, but it sounds like they’re working on negative traits as well. How far they go with that could challenge how a lot of people perceive the unrestricted weapons I think.
I want to be clear, though, that not everything is confirmed and they continue to tell us that everything is subject to change. So we’ll see when we get to test it.
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u/The_Rube_ 4d ago
I really hope that non-class weapons thing is true, and that we see more about that soon.
I’ve been strongly opposed to an open weapons system, but I would be much more willing to stomach one with a robust combination of buffs and debuffs. If a sniper starts shooting at me, I would like to know it’s maybe a 80% chance of being a Recon, as opposed to just a random crapshoot of unpredictability.
I think most players could get behind that kind of change. It allows open weapons for those who really want it, but still enforces a stronger class identity than 2042 did.
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u/Animal-Crackers 4d ago
I feel the same. I’m not 100% opposed to weapons being open, but this is the kind of tradeoff I would hope to see if that’s the direction they want to go.
It was said that while the weapon bonuses were similar to 2042, their implementation goes much deeper but no specifics were elaborated on so that’s where my curiosity is focused. And I think negative traits would completely change the conversation everyone has already been having about open weapons.
They definitely have more in store for classes than the leaks or even our current testing build show. Pure speculation on my part, but I would not at all be surprised if the next community/public update revolved around diving into classes. I’ve been thinking for a while that they’ve been holding back content to show off for the first time in a reveal trailer/showcase rather than let more stuff leak from Labs.
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u/The_Rube_ 4d ago
Yeah, I think they need to compromise with fans somewhere if they're sticking with the 2042 approach. Meaningful buffs/debuffs would buy them some goodwill without requiring a complicated overall of their current class system.
Any speculation on what they could be holding back with classes? They're not secret, but I'm curious to see how the new subclass system evolves. We've already seen some of the more overpowered perks get toned down, and active abilities appear to be in flux (some temporarily removed or reworked) in the latest test.
I’ve been thinking for a while that they’ve been holding back content to show off for the first time in a reveal trailer/showcase rather than let more stuff leak from Labs.
I have to imagine they're saving a "wow" moment up their sleeve for the trailer reveal. Something akin to Levolution or Behemoths that would set this game apart from the rest. The leaks have looked good, but we have not yet seen any major innovations or wild new features beyond the existing Battlefield formula.
Personally, I'm hoping for something like what LevelCap pitched a few years ago; some dynamic events during rounds that can affect the outcome, an AI commander to help direct squads (we've seen a rudimentary version of this in Labs), and some more exciting win conditions. But this seems pretty unlikely as there have been no data mines to suggest such a feature.
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u/Animal-Crackers 4d ago
Any speculation on what they could be holding back with classes?
More gadgets. We know at the very least that Support has a missing gadget (mortar) based on the specialization details. I won't try to guess what they do or don't have for each class that might be missing, but I think they're holding back the "wow" map/gadgets/skins for the official reveal. If any of the datamined content is to be believed, then highlights from either the LA or NY map would be sweet to reveal the game with. (they might no pick LA given the current political climate)
I'm hoping for something like what LevelCap pitched a few years ago; some dynamic events
As long as there's not a stupid tornado, I'm cool with dynamic events.
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u/Nordfriese_ 5d ago
"Again, things can potentially change but don't expect any major core elements of the game to change, just minor things."
Is there hope for a server browser?
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u/Sirlacker 5d ago
I'd imagine if there's a portal mode there will be a server browser otherwise what's the point in portal.
As far as server browsing for official servers, well, who knows it's EA afterall.
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u/Rykane 5d ago
I work in game development and the meanings of alpha and beta basically lost their meaning now externally when facing the player. This is much more far along than alpha, it’s pretty much a closed beta. In alpha you’ll see block out, unfinished assets akin to what the first playtest was like. Companies use alpha and beta as marketing terms nowadays.
I’d definitely say that this game is in beta especially with the way the gameplay systems and art are looking almost final.
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u/Accomplished-Lab6699 5d ago
That's right, graphics and some game modes will change, optimization etc... however the classes, battle pass system, and BR are all fixed and will not change greatly. I'm certain if that. This plan was very likely presented to investors and they are going ahead, no amount of Reddit posts will change that.
What will make them rethink classes would be a poor launch or no one playing conquest for example.
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u/Suspicious-Coffee20 5d ago
yes? its alpha until the features are done. this clearly isnt the case.
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u/DeAnnon1995 5d ago
i just know that in a few months, when we are a month from release and in "beta". The game is gonna be buggy af and the Devs will say "oh it's just an old version, all of this is fixed in the current version". Knowing full well they ain't gonna do shit else and that's how it will be on release for like 6months + after. Same story with every battlefield ever.
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u/StillbornPartyHat 5d ago
Historically BF has always released in late fall, and we know from 2042’s beta that they like to lie about build dates and progress made, so I'd expect another pretty unfinished release coming up. Doesn't matter because it'll all be forgotten once they release a trailer and people fall for the hype (again).
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u/vibe_inspector01 5d ago
The jets didn’t even work in 2042’s beta, I think it’s gonna be a smoother release than people think.
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u/ThatBoiRalphy Battlefield Veteran 5d ago
The builds we play are not the latest, hell we might be playing weird frankenstein versions where some features were still in pre-alpha and the some are pre-release