The latest battle royale game to join the genre craze that took over the world in the past decade is off to a tenuous start on Steam, but for reasons you may not expect.
Battlefield REDSEC launched yesterday morning alongside Battlefield 6's season one, and it's off to a Mostly Negative rating on Steam thanks to a wide array of "not recommended" reviews on the platform. When looking into the reviews, though, the negativity seems to have little to do with the actual game mode itself.
A good amount of the negative ratings are from players who are unhappy that the focus seems to be shifting to REDSEC over the premium base game, BF6. The comparisons between the two have already begun, and as a CoD player who's seen Warzone take precedent over the year's base game a few times before, it feels all too familiar.
"I do not like being forced to do challenges for the battle royale, when I'm just interested in playing the base game," one of the top reviews said. "Please keep battle royale challenges separate from the standard multiplayer; if you want to have some multiplayer as a timed mode for the battle royale, that's fine, but please keep it separate."
"I wouldn't hate it so much if I wasn't forced to play it for challenges in the main game," another complained. "But I am. So I do. This is not why I bought Battlefield 6."
Comparing REDSEC to Warzone here, CoD often hosts different events with challenges across the game's modes, and many of them can be completed in any mode between multiplayer, Zombies, or Warzone. For EA's try at BR, it seems to really want to force players into trying it out.
With the new free-to-play mode now making the game accessible to anybody, there's also been the inception of ads for store bundles that have begun to pop up in the game. One reviewer said that "this whole S1 update feels like adblocker stopped working."
Again, as a CoD player, this feels like standard fare. Ever since Warzone dropped in 2020, Activision has spent a lot of time and money catering to F2P players in Warzone while trying to also entice them to pick up the full game for the full price. I'd expect EA to follow suit.
"If I wanted to play Warzone I would install CoD," one reviewer stated plainly.
The complaints are not all about REDSEC taking the shine from BF6, though. Several other reviews mentioned that REDSEC launched without solo queue or the ability to disable autofill, while some others complained that the BR mode has tanks and a lack of armor to find on the map. One gamer says the experience is bad when compared to other titles in the BR genre.
"Coming from APEX and Fortnite, the UI is the worst part of the game," they said. "Menus are incomprehensible, the settings are hard to navigate and understand, and the experience while playing a game sucks."
I've played several games, and I think REDSEC is alright. I do see the Warzone comparisons pretty clearly, and I don't really see myself going out of my way to play it due to a bit of BR fatigue. What do you think of it so far? Let us know in the comments.
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The post Battlefield REDSEC launches with Mostly Negative Steam reviews, but complaints have little to do with the BR experience itself appeared first on Destructoid.
