Well, the head-to-head battle between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 officially began in earnest this weekend. And BF6 fired the first shots with its launch trailer.
Let me begin by saying that I have no stake in this battle. I root for good games, not franchises. I've enjoyed past Battlefields, and I've enjoyed past CoDs. I've admittedly enjoyed both series a bit less as time has worn on, but I'm always going to poke around and see what the next one is like.
First, let me give credit where it's due: the BF6 launch trailer is hilarious. It begins with four utterly random celebrities (actor Zac Efron, country musician Morgan Wallen, NBA player Jimmy Butler, and MMA fighter Paddy Pimblett) suited up as soldiers, ready to take on the world in the game. And then they get blown to absolute smithereens by a rocket as actual soldiers walk over their gibbed remains, and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" by Smashing Pumpkins begins to play.
The first time I saw this yesterday, I lost my shit. I laughed for a good few minutes and replayed the scene a few times. CoD has repeatedly used random, gratuitous celebrity cameos in its live-action trailers, and this trailer was directly poking fun at it.
Not only that, but the Smashing Pumpkins song was already used in an actual CoD trailer just a few years ago for Modern Warfare II's multiplayer reveal. So, yeah, this was a direct attack on CoD in the lead-up to both games releasing a little over one month away from each other.
The more I think about it, though, the more I realize how petty and how much "little brother" vibes it gives. Why acknowledge CoD at all? Shouldn't BF6 be good enough to stand on its own merit? The game's beta was a massive success, and it should dominate when it comes to sales in October. Why even mention the elephant in the room at all?
I digress in the end, though, because I think the trailer did exactly what it was aiming to do, and that's get people talking. It evokes the spirit of competitive FPS trash talk without being overtly tasteless, so I give EA and its marketing partners a lot of credit for this one. Kudos.
But I also can't shake the icky feeling that this wasn't necessary, either, so I guess I'm split on how to feel about this trailer. In the end, it's irrelevant as everything depends on how the games play, but what did you think about BF6's "shots fired" moment in the big-budget AAA FPS war of 2025? Let us know in the comments below.
BF6 launches on Oct. 10, while Black Ops 7 comes out on Nov. 14, and its beta test takes place this weekend.
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The post Battlefield 6’s launch trailer mocking CoD is simultaneously hilarious and also the most ‘little brother energy’ thing ever appeared first on Destructoid.
