After making Closed Weapons almost invisible in the Battlefield 6 beta, DICE says Open Weapons is 'the right path forward' because it was more popular

Now just days away from launch, Battlefield Studios has published a new blog outlining changes made to Battlefield 6 since the August open beta. Movement is more "responsive," recoil has increased to resemble past games, and those unpopular Rush map layouts have received a second pass.

It's good news all around, unless you're one of the many Battlefield 6 beta players who didn't like its new "Open Weapons" default—a ruleset that lets any class use any weapon a la Call of Duty.

A good chunk of today's blog was a post-mortem on player behavior in the open beta—the result of exactly 92,351,578 total hours played. When comparing Open vs. Closed playlists, DICE says class pick rates were "mostly identical" and Closed Weapon (AKA class-locked weapons) matches went on just a tad longer on average, which led to a 2-3% increase in revives.

As for weapon usage, "more players played with non-signature weapons in Open Weapon playlists. However, Recon players still favored Sniper Rifles over other weapons, and their pick rate was identical between both playlist types."

That lines up with my experience. With open weapons, engineers tended to ditch their signature SMGs for the generally superior assault rifles. However, DICE says gun picks were pretty even.

"There was not a single dominant weapon archetype, and we observed a consistent and well-distributed pick rate between them," DICE says. "This balance shows that even with different playlist types, players explored a wide variety of options without one class standing out above the rest."

Since DICE does not clarify what "well-distributed" means to the studio, that may indicate there is one weapon archetype that's clearly number one (I'd guess assault rifles or carbines), but popular within its expectations.

The kicker for Closed Weapons enjoyers came at the end of the section, where DICE reinforced its belief that open weapons is the best Battlefield 6 experience…because it was played more in the beta.

"Lastly, another key insight from the Open Beta was that the vast majority of players, after trying both playlist types, chose to stick with Open Weapons," the blog reads. "This reinforces our belief that Open Weapons is the right path forward for Battlefield 6. At the same time, we recognize that some players prefer the Closed Weapons experience. To support them, official Closed Weapons playlists will be available at launch."

Acknowledging that I'm exactly the person who would pick this apart, there are clear holes in this logic. It was clear from day one of the beta that the Open Weapons playlist was going to be the most popular way to play Battlefield 6, because that's exactly how DICE presented it to players. The deck was stacked against Closed Weapons from the start.

For example:

• Open Weapons was presented as the default, "normal" Battlefield 6 mode, while "Closed Weapons" was labeled like an alternate: It wasn't called "Open Weapons Conquest," just "Conquest"
• For the first few days of the beta, the Closed Weapons playlist was shoved off-screen from the main menu, requiring an unpleasant horizontal scroll to find it
• DICE did not support Closed Weapons versions of all its modes in the beta, so if you wanted to play Rush, for instance, you had to stick to Open Weapons

So to say players preferred Open Weapons because it got more playtime is like saying the gigantic billboard that said "PLAY BATTLEFIELD 6 HERE" got more attention than an ad in the back of the phonebook. The data was skewed toward the behavior that DICE hoped for (players get used to open weapons and stop bringing up the closed weapons thing), and now it's got it.

That's a major disappointment, because Closed Weapons really was the place to be in the Battlefield 6 beta. In my matches, I noticed a more even split of classes (fewer engineers and snipers, thank god), more weapon variety, and less revive spamming.

At least the superior ruleset will still be present in Battlefield 6: There will be official Closed Weapons playlists at launch, though I'm increasingly certain it will be treated like an afterthought, as it was in the beta.

Indeed, it seems like longtime Battlefield fans will need to look toward the community server browser to find the full-featured classic playlists we're looking for. That's where you'll find me—maybe you'll even see a PC Gamer server running classic Conquest 24/7.