Want to show that you can develop a better Battlefield than Dice? Then Portal mode is just right for you. We explain what you can do with it this year.
Some of the most enduring games in PC history not only offered a solid gaming experience, but also gave their fans creative tools. In games like Warcraft 3, these editor tools even gave rise to completely new game ideas that became successful in their own right.
Will Battlefield 6 will also be successful? That’s hard to predict. In any case, the first-person shooter once again offers a creative mode in which you can put together your very own Battlefield experience.
The mode is once again called Portal, comes from the studio Ripple Effect, and has now been presented in detail. Here we explain what you can expect in Portal. Because the mode is becoming even more powerful, but also more complicated.
What is Portal anyway?
This is not about Valve’s highly acclaimed puzzle shooter; Portal is a standalone game mode within Battlefield 6. It is designed to allow you to modify the Battlefield 6 gaming experience using a number of tools to create your own personal gaming experience.
It acts as a somewhat limited modding tool that allows you to modify numerous parameters for your own server. For example, you can make sure that each player only has one bullet, or create a kind of zombie mode in which a few players with weapons compete against hundreds of opponents with knives.
The mode was already quite varied in Battlefield 2042, but many new tools have been added for Battlefield 6.
Where can I find Portal?
In Battlefield 2042, Portal was still included directly in the game, but in Battlefield 6, the mode has been moved to a web browser. You can easily access it via a PC or smart device and then configure all the settings you want to try out in your game mode.
Here’s what you can customize in Portal
Portal’s toolbox is huge and allows for many, many customizations. You can pretty much design the rules of your game freely, creating an experience that stands out significantly from the normal game modes. Here are a few of the well-known sliders:
- How much fall damage is there?
- Can you lie down?
- Does health regenerate?
- Is sliding or sprinting allowed?
- Do soldiers just go down or do they die immediately after being shot?
- Infinite ammo?
- Which weapons, classes, and vehicles are available?
- On which maps will all this take place?
- How many players are allowed on each side? How many of them are bots?
- You can even customize the UI, turning elements on or off, and even bring your own ranking system into the game.
- How should the AI behave and in what form does it appear on the battlefield?
This time, Portal includes over 100 different settings options. This should make it possible to create many creative modes that have never been seen before in Battlefield.
There is a map editor
Probably the biggest new feature in Battlefield 6 is the map editor. This time, you can not only modify the rules using settings options, you can also change the maps almost beyond recognition.
To do this, Battlefield uses the tools of the open-source and free Godot Engine, which you can also operate via your web browser.
Here, you can freely edit the maps included in Battlefield 6. You can add, delete, or resize objects. This opens up the possibility for truly absurd modes.
The developers cite as examples a mode in which two teams must reach the top of a huge tower, or Battlefield 6 as a top-down shooter.
That’s easy to say, but the map editor is actually extremely complex and you’ll have to familiarize yourself with it first. Tutorials and playable experiences are designed to help you do this. There are also numerous helpful tutorials for Godot already available online.
Everything about the server browser
The server browser has been redesigned so that you can quickly and easily find the modes you’re interested in. With the help of the experience library, you can search for tags and keywords to find the right mode for you. Particularly popular creations are also integrated directly into the main menu and can be accessed at the touch of a button.
What’s really cool is that every player who purchases Battlefield 6 has access to a persistent server. This means that your creation is available even when you’re not online.
Experience points in Portal
The team has also learned from Battlefield 2042 in terms of experience points. Initially, the modes were often abused and became veritable XP farms. Battlefield 6 features a new system to ensure that experience is distributed fairly:
- Verified community creations that are very similar to traditional game modes such as Conquest and Rush give the same amount of XP as when you play these modes outside of Portal.
- Experimental creations that offer completely new gaming experiences give XP based on playing time.
The type of game progress granted by the created game mode should be visible in the menu.
What’s missing from Portal this year?
We can’t rule it out completely yet, but it seems that assets from older games are missing from Portal this year. In Battlefield 2042, for example, it was possible to create modes set in World War II or on maps from Battlefield 3. So far, there has been no sign of this.
All of the game mode’s content appears to be based on assets from Battlefield 6. However, in the months following the release, the development team promised new updates for Portal that could deliver new content from older games.
