Battlefield 6’s Season 2 thunders onto PC today, a three-month festival of Battlefoolery that begins with a new map, Contaminated, new modes for the Redsec battle royale component, a dinky yet deadly helicopter, and some new guns and gadgets. The EA shooter’s Steam playerbase has slumped following its chart-topping release last year, but don’t worry, ye Battlefaithful, because Season 2 has officially recaptured my interest by filling my lungs with psychoactive vapours.
In new limited-time mode VL-7 Strike, available in regular multiplayer and Redsec, you must wear a gas mask and replenish its filters to avoid falling victim to clouds of funky fumes. Idiot! Why would you want to avoid falling victim to clouds of funky fumes. It’s got to be more intriguing than flipping the objective yet again.
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From the outside, the gas clouds merely block your view. Stroll into one without a mask, and you’ll experience disturbing hallucinations, or at least, hallucinations that are as disturbing as they can be without scuppering the balance of a competitive shooter.
Gun barrels leave smeary vapour trails, and the billowing firmament comes alive with phantoms who might be friends or enemies or entirely illusory. It’s in keeping with hallucinations I’ve had in the likes of Far Cry 3 and We Happy Few, and I do think they could go further. Here’s an impromptu list of potential happy gas varieties based on my own, not very wild youth, together with a brief outline of their effects.
- VL-8 “The Sly Lupin”: causes a beautiful grey wolf to spawn who explains in a smouldering baritone that they are your spirit animal. The wolf follows you everywhere, never breaking eye contact. When friendlies talk to you over voice chat, the wolf insists that they are lying to you.
- VL-9 “The Silent Bob”: on entering the gas cloud, your perspective and gun barrel begin to shake as your character breaks out into uncontrollable giggles. The giggling intensifies as you near the epicentre, ruining your attempts to shoot at other, staggering players bent double by shrieks of laughter. Everybody sort of flops bonelessly in a ring, sobbing and pawing at each other like newborn puppies, till the mists clear and some straight-edge loser across the valley pounds you all flat with artillery fire.
- VL-10 “The Launch Build”: everytnhig has gone all disodrerly. The tnaks kep fallinlg through the gravle, into skbyox. The copsesspses roll and tuble cross the plans like they’re mad of wraring mgannets. Yu do a knefi klil and now you’re 10000 feet in the air. Your riffle is stok to your fas. Tareble
- VL-11 “The Eggman”: I am he as you are he, as you are me and we are all together. See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly… I’m crying
- VL-12 “The Jump-Cut”: Suddenly it’s 11pm and you’re playing Balatro, safe and at peace save for a mysterious string of Christmas display lights wrapped around your ankle, which trails out through your bedroom door and down the stairs. Shhh now, play Balatro.
You can read about Battlefield 6’s Season 2 offerings in full over at Ian Games.