Battlefield Redsec is here, and the battle royale game is being inundated with negative reviews on Steam. I’ve played a few rounds now and can say that this isn’t entirely fair.
The history doesn’t speak in Battlefield’s favor: Redsec: The shooter series has tried twice to compete with games like Warzone and Escape from Tarkov. But both Firestorm in Battlefield 5 and Hazard Zone in Battlefield 2042 failed miserably.
Now they’re trying again to push their way into the battle royale market, but with one big difference: Battlefield: Redsec is available completely free of charge from the outset. So does the new Battlefield offshoot have a chance of survival? We’ve played it and believe so, but hopefully not at the expense of Battlefield 6.
Warzone in Battlefield skin or more?
After just a few minutes playing Redsec’s battle royale, it becomes clear that there is a clear role model: Call of Duty’s Warzone. Anyone who has played Warzone will quickly find their way around Redsec: helicopter drops, hunting for weapons and equipment in crates, missions, loadout drops, artillery strikes, and armor plates.
The general gameplay loop and many small mechanics are nothing new. Redsec doesn’t want to be a revolution for the genre, but rather an alternative with a few Battlefield special features. These are also quite well integrated: at the beginning of a round, for example, we choose the classes familiar from multiplayer, each of which comes with certain advantages and gadgets:
- The assault soldier has a ladder that we can use to flank entrenched enemies. He replenishes armor plates faster and can bring fallen allies back to respawn towers more quickly.
- The Engineer carries tools that he uses to repair vehicles and crack safes for valuable loot. He also gets a rocket launcher.
- The Supply Officer can heal allies and give them ammunition with his supply bag. His smoke grenade launcher also helps cover our retreat or attack.
- The Scout can use his drone to spot enemies and even bomb them. As in multiplayer, he automatically marks enemies when he targets them.
The relatively clear division of roles helps coordinate the squad and intensifies cooperation. During an advance, the scout can provide cover or report the position of enemies, the supplier is the only one who has ammunition and healing available at all times, and the engineer is an expert in destroying buildings, safes, and vehicles.
This brings us to the second major feature: the greater role of vehicles. In Redsec, we can control not only jeeps and quads, but also helicopters and tanks. However, we first have to retrieve the latter from a locked trailer using a key card we find. The vehicles are also not as powerful as in multiplayer: they can withstand fewer hits and have limited ammunition, which can be reloaded at vehicle stations.
How good is Redsec?
We’ve already jumped into a few battle royale rounds and can say with confidence that the bad Steam reviews don’t do Battlefield: Redsec justice. In fact, it’s a solid new offshoot of the genre. The large map offers a lot of variety, from the densely built-up city center to a huge corporate building, a military training area, a golf course, an airplane crash site, and much more:
The rounds are adrenaline-fueled, as is typical for battle royale games, and every death counts, as we only get one second chance to rejoin the game. As a squad, we therefore have to work even more closely together if we want to have a chance of survival. There are few quiet moments; most of the time, we stumble from one firefight to the next, completing missions in between.
The Battlefield twist works well, even if it doesn’t make Redsec a fundamentally new kind of battle royale. But it does provide opportunities for Battlefield moments, such as when we wipe out an entire squad with a tank, blow up an enemy vehicle together, or bring down an entire building above our heads with an artillery strike.
Fortunately, the technology doesn’t cause any major problems, even if there are still a few bugs. For example, we sometimes slip through the floor under the map, get squashed by a vault door into the wall, or the game crashes after the end of a round. These are annoying problems, but they can be fixed.
If you’re looking for a little more excitement in Battlefield 6, have one to three friends to play with, and are resilient enough to simply start the next round after dying, you should give Redsec’s Battle Royale a try. The main menu also offers bot rounds for you to try out.
Gauntlet: This is where Redsec gets creative
The second major mode, Gauntlet, takes a back seat to the launch of Redsec: Here, eight squads compete against each other on changing maps and must collect as many points as possible with missions to win. With each round, the weakest groups are eliminated and the maps are reduced in size until only two squads are left to fight for victory.
The missions in Gauntlet
In contrast to Battle Royale, Battlefield ventures into something more extraordinary with Gauntlet. The result is a very intense mode in which you really have to give it your all as a squad and quickly get used to new environments and tasks. This is not a relaxed round of Battlefield to play after work, which will probably deter many players.
Gauntlet will therefore likely remain a rather niche mode, but one that is worth checking out for competitive players.
The problem is not Redsec itself
So where do all the negative Steam reviews come from? It’s not the quality of the free Battle Royale that’s to blame. Rather, it’s a recurring problem that already plagues Battlefield 6, namely the annoying progression system:
The Battle Pass in Season 1 is leveled up through both multiplayer and Redsec. This isn’t a bad idea in principle, but the developers are stepping on the toes of many fans with their execution. A large part of the challenges that are used to level up the Battle Pass only work in Battle Royale.
This doesn’t sit well with many players who only want to play regular multiplayer. In order to progress as quickly as possible, they would still have to play Redsec. Many Steam reviews therefore do not evaluate Redsec itself, but express annoyance at the challenges. Often, concerns are also expressed that the developers would favor Redsec over multiplayer. As was the case before Season 1, the challenges are causing unnecessary annoyance. The developers need to quickly revise the often buggy and overly difficult missions in the main game anyway. At the same time, they should also ensure that players can level up at full speed, regardless of whether they only play multiplayer or also Redsec.
Editor’s conclusion
As someone who never really warmed up to Call of Duty and had no experience with other extraction or battle royale shooters, I’m excited about Redsec. Battlefield 6 is currently the multiplayer shooter I’ve been putting time and effort into. I know the weapons, classes, and gadgets, and I can use that knowledge and my unlocks in Redsec as well.
If there’s ever going to be a battle royale game that I play for a long time, it’ll probably be Redsec. Even though the Battlefield spin-off doesn’t revolutionize the genre. I’m having a lot of fun here with a group, even though we haven’t won a single round since we started. And that’s a very good sign for me.
