Soon, Battlefield 6 players will be able to enjoy a taste of Top Gun in the popular shooter, although the collaboration is… interesting in a few different ways.
It’ll be available from August 18 until it’s replaced by Tidal Strike on September 15.
First of all, don’t expect Tom Cruise to make an appearance. Perhaps understandably, EA limited the guest star participation to actors who have likely lighter pay grades.
You’ll meet Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd (Lewis Pullman), and Adm and Solomon “Warlock” Bates (Charles Parnell).
The collaboration features two aircraft, the F/A-18F Super Hornet and the F-14A Tomcat… wait. Actually, they are called F/A-81 Super Spectre and F-74A Seacat, because all these petrodollars, apparently, aren’t good enough to license the real names.
We’ll also get a Wake Island map, with two aircraft carriers serving as objectives and two gameplay modes: Carrier Strike and Gauntlet: Fighter Sweep.
To celebrate, Electronic Arts released a trailer that is certainly action-packed, but is also weirdly awkward and crude for anyone with any knowledge of military aviation.
Aside from the absolutely wonky flying, which we can forgive because it tries to reproduce the Top Gun movies, the final scene is really botched.
Rooster locks two AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking Air-to-Air missiles (the same he used to shoot down a Su-57 Felon just a minute before) on an aircraft on the deck of the enemy carrier, then shouts “Bombs Away,” and the missiles actually behave like bombs, failing to ignite their rocket motors and simply gliding into a hole in the deck that did not exist a second before, causing a chain reaction that blows up the whole carrier.
First of all, that’s obviously not how missiles work. They’re not bombs. On top of that, a Sidewinder only carries a 20-pound warhead, which would barely scratch a carrier, let alone send it to the bottom. But again, that’s irrelevant since you wouldn’t (and couldn’t) drop air-to-air missiles like bombs to begin with.
Of course, we don’t expect DCS World simulation precision from Battlefield, but this shows a lack of the most basic research and interest in the subject, and a bit of an insult to the intelligence of the fans. I’m actually shocked that Paramount greenlit this.
That being said, hats off to the animators. They did a great job. Too bad that someone did not do their homework and decided that Sidewinders can be convinced that they are JDAMs or Paveways.
You can watch the trailer below and see for yourself.
We also get the roadmap for the season.
Battlefield 6 is currently available for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
