Only weeks after the launch of Battlefield 6 there’s a new free-to-play battle royale available and it’s a very convincing rival to Call Of Duty: Warzone.
Given how many failed attempts there’s been, over the last two decades, there was little reason to believe that Battlefield 6 would become a genuine rival to Call Of Duty. Knowing how many times EA has botched the launch of previous entries, all the usual talk of listening to fans and going back to basics seemed like empty marketing speak.
But against the odds, Battlefield 6 has been a critical and commerical success and the best entry since at least 2013’s Battlefield 4. It won’t outsell Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 but with anticipation for that game being unusually subdued there could well be a change in the hierarchy of power, when it comes to online shooters.
Much will depend on ongoing support for Battlefield 6, and EA resisting the temptation to get greedy with microtransactions, but they now have another important piece of the puzzle ready to go: a free-to-play battle royale to rival Call Of Duty: Warzone.
Redsec is not the first time that EA has attempted a Battlefield battle royale. In fact, it’s very reminiscent of Battlefield 5’s Firestorm mode, especially in terms of the billows of smoke and fire surrounding the game map, as the inferno encircling you slowly shrinks the playable safe zone where the action takes place. Except unlike Fortnite and its peers this will kill you instantly if it overtakes you.
Since Redsec only became available for download at 3pm on Tuesday, October 28 we’ve only had a few hours with the game so far, although in truth a scored review for a constantly changing, free-to-play game probably doesn’t make much sense. Nevertheless, it’s obvious from just an evening with the game that this is a very solid foundation for the future.
The map, which is apparently the biggest in series history, is unique and set in southern California. It’s a little anonymous looking, as Battlefield maps tend to be, but it has all the same destruction effects as the main multiplayer mode, as well as the same four character classes.
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But while the basics are the same, there are differences with how the classes work, compared to the standard multiplayer. For a start, everyone gets armour plating, just like Warzone, while many of the abilities can be upgraded in ways that they can’t in multiplayer. Most of these seem to be mirroring their use in the story campaign, so you’ve got drones that can drop explosives and RPGs that can upgraded to fire laser-guided missiles.
As in Fortnite (and PUBG and all the rest) the standard game mode has 100 players (or teams of 50 duos) dropping into the map, in an attempt to be the last person standing. It really is as simple as that and a large part of the appeal of the mode is that there are multiple viable plans that can help you survive, from aggressively taking out opponents to staying hidden and trying to win by default, as everyone else, and the firestorm, take out your rivals for you.
Randomly placed weapon crates are always waiting to be discovered, which is especially useful if it’s explosives of some sort, since knocking down a building or two is a great way to take out the competition. Our favourite moments with the game so far were setting up on a relatively low-level rooftop, with a competent team who posted lookouts while others either sniped at those running below or tried to take out neighbouring buildings at appropriate moments.
Since this is Battlefield, the map is also filled with vehicles, with anyone that can fly a helicopter or jet having a significant advantage, even if they do attract the attention of everyone else in the game. Vehicles aren’t a free-for-all though and to get the most dangerous ones you usually have to complete a mission – simple side quests like picking up intel – in order to unlock a storage container containing a tank or other more powerful vehicle.
As well as standard battle royale, there’s also an original mode called Gauntlet – which is good to see, because one of the main game’s more glaring faults is its lack of original ideas. Gauntlet isn’t exactly groundbreaking but it’s a significantly different kind of elimination mode, with eight teams of four players taking part in round-based missions. Each round lasts five minutes, with randomised objectives like retrieving an item or holding a position.
What’s impressive about Redsec is that not only is it completely free, but you don’t need PS Plus or Game Pass to play it and you get access to Battlefield Portal as well. This allows you to customise the Redsec modes in many ways, in terms of things like which weapons or vehicles are available and the scoring system. Meanwhile, a scripting system will allow more technically-minded players to make even more extensive changes to how matches work.
The game does try to upsell you Battlefield 6 whenever it gets a chance but it’s less obnoxious than you might think (you access Redsec by downloading the interface for the main game, which works essentially as a shell, where you have to pay for the campaign and multiplayer separately).
EA clearly know what they’re doing here and there’s little obvious to complain about right now. It’s always impossible to predict the future success of an online game, no matter how good or bad it might be, but at the moment Redsec seems to be doing everything right and it’s very hard to imagine it not being a massive, and well deserved, hit.
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: free-to-play
Publisher: EA
Developer: Battlefield Studios
Release Date: 28th October 2025
Age Rating: 16
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