Battlefield 6 Season 1 map preview: The highs and lows of Golden State and Blackwell maps

Ahead of Battlefield 6 Season 1, we got hands-on with the first two map drops: Golden State and Blackwell. For a few hours, we played through a rotation of multiplayer game modes, to see how they feel in-person, alongside some of the best FPS players in America. While I’m definitely not one of those players, I am a casual enjoyer of the Battlefield franchise, and it’s easily my favorite FPS game of the year.

That isn’t to say these maps aren’t without flaws. I, alongside other players during the Season 1 preview, found some pretty heavy issues with the Battlefield 6 maps. In particular, it was during the small-time, Close-Quarter map gameplay.

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Battlefield 6 Season 1 map Golden State is a triumph of modern design (except in Close-Quarters)

Battlefield 6 Season 1’s map offerings kicked off for me with Golden State, a beautiful, high-rent area of California. Beautiful houses, perfectly manicured lawns, huge areas that frankly, looked like golf courses, and lots of stuff to hide behind/on. Golden State is an amazing, large, open map set in an idyllic gated community that appears to be under siege.

There are so many great places to play around in the Golden State map (Image via EA)

It’s the little things on this map that I really like. Jumping and climbing over huge bushes, or using them to sneak up on people, or hiding behind an air conditioning unit, to open fire on unsuspecting players. It’s brilliantly designed, and looks amazing from the air.

Being able to come up over a hill, and start popping shots at people hiding in buildings (or simply demolish parts of the wall) is incredibly satisfying. The terrain is varied, giving you sections where it’s wide open with nowhere to hide, while also offering lots of areas fit for guerilla warfare.

Here's a bird's-eye view of the action (Image via EA)

If I could make one small complaint about this Battlefield 6 Season 1 map, it really did feel like there were too many vehicles on the map at pretty much any given time. I don’t think this is the worst thing, but there were almost always two tanks and one helicopter in the sky while playing here.

There were some very weird, minor visual glitches, but that’s to be expected from a build that’s not been finalized. Some of the swimming pools only had water in select parts of the pool, which was peculiar. It was like a Minecraft pool that wasn’t full all the way.

Here's the full map for large-scale combat in Golden State (Image via EA)

While there were plenty of vehicles running around, the streets were wide enough for the tanks, as they rolled past large walled-off houses in sunny California. It felt like a neighborhood that could really exist in California, and by the end of the match, trees and walls alike were smashed to pieces by this heated battle.

I will say that, while the new Sabotage (Close-Quarters) Battlefield 6 experience wasn’t great on this map, it was slightly better than it was on Blackwell. At least this map felt like I had some protection when I spawned in. Having houses and bushes to hide behind is great, until other players shoot you through a bush.

That doesn’t feel good, but at least it makes sense. You play in a very tight little section of the map, but at least here, unlike Blackwell, it felt like you have some flanking opportunities by coming up around houses to sneak up on the other team.

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Battlefield 6 Season 1’s Blackwell Map is a fiery inferno, but the Close-Quarters version is a killing field

Blackwell is the second Season 1 map in Battlefield 6, and it takes place in a desolate area, set at sundown. It’s an oil refinery, of course, there’s going to be some environmental hazards to deal with. One of these is the sun. The sundown is brilliant and bright, and while it looks gorgeous, it can also shine in your eyes, making it easier for your opponents to get free shots.

What can I say? Vehicle count aside, I love being a tank gunner (Image via EA)

That’s not all you have to deal with though. One of the cooler parts of this map for me had to be that there are sections of it that are just on fire. Makes sense with all the oil everywhere. If you stumble into the fire, you’ll start taking damage for a limited time, but you can, for the most part, avoid it.

A desolate scrubland, there are still quite a few things you can hide around and in, but nowhere near as much as the Golden State map. It’s not completely flat, either. You have huge hills to camp on for snipers, and small hills to hide behind.

I’m a huge fan of this map design as well, because it is such a starkly different design from the other map added in Season 1. However, this is where I really started to notice the problems with Close-Quarters in BF6.

I felt like I needed sunglasses just to play on this map (Image via EA)

Blackwell’s design for Close-Quarters maps like Sabotage highlights a really serious issue with the game design. There is almost no protection for players spawning in on the Blackwell map. We would spawn in, and die within one second, because the enemy could just see us, and open fire.

It didn’t help that players were just abandoning the map when we began being spawn camped. One map came down to about 2 or 3 players on my side, just being killed as soon as we spawned back in, and that's a miserable design.

Here's the full Blackwell Fields map for large-scale battle (Image via EA)

There’s no real opportunity to flank on the map, and you just have to rush down the middle it feels like, right into a meat grinder. I think this one could probably use some iteration, somewhere down the line. Other than that, I love the map as a whole. I just don’t care for this section of it.

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Final Thoughts on the new game modes and maps in Battlefield 6

While I love the new maps, my feelings about the new game modes are mixed. Well, I should say game mode, because I didn’t get a chance to play Strikepoint, due to personal reasons. I did try Sabotage a few times though, and that’s where the conflict shows up. I prefer the larger-scale maps, but part of that is a skill issue.

Sabotage is pretty simple, though. There are two HQs on the map, and one side has a bunch of armaments and weaponry (in boxes) that you need to break. The more stuff you break, the more the bar fills up. It's also about a 5-minute timer, so it's not infinite. Then the other side gets their chance, and whoever has the most done at the end wins.

The second we left the safety of the dumpster, instant death (Image via EA)

I’m not an incredibly skilled Battlefield 6 player, and smaller teams really highlight when you’re doing poorly. When you combine that with tight maps that don’t offer a lot of maneuvering at best (Golden State) and killing fields at worst (Blackwell), they can be very frustrating to take part in. That’s really just a small part of it though.

I don’t think Sabotage felt fun to play. You sneak into a site and break boxes, that’s pretty much it. I can see it being fun for people who are really into small-group combat and the tactical planning that comes with it, but Blackwell just quickly devolved into spawn camping to protect the payloads.

This could improve with time, and I do think some people will enjoy it, but it certainly wasn’t for me. The maps however, were incredible. You won’t have to wait long, either, because Season 1 begins for Battlefield 6 on October 28, 2025.

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Check out our other Battlefield 6 guides and features

• Battlefield 6: All class assignments and rewards
• How to create maps in Battlefield 6 Portal
• Battlefield 6 Weapon Tier List
• Battlefield 6 Jet Guide: How to fly, tips and tricks explained

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Edited by Jason Parker