Best Battlefield Games

Since the title’s first release, Battlefield 1942, back in 2002, EA’s FPS franchise has produced more than 10 main games with plenty of expansion packs. With that being said, Battlefield has been a constant competitor of Activision’s Call of Duty franchise, with both licenses rivaling in sales, gameplay, single-player campaigns, and online experiences.

The best Battlefield games of all time continue to provide a ton of entertainment for fans, with the story modes and multiplayer content keeping players occupied for hours on end. While not all Battlefield games are created equal, there’s something to enjoy in every game in the series for FPS fans who love military warfare games where they can hone their skills and enjoy a power fantasy as they shoot down enemies by the dozens and even hundreds, in some instances.

Updated on August 5, 2025, by Mark Sammut: A Battlefield game is on the horizon, and EA has done the impossible: People are looking forward to it! That might not sound impressive, but interest in a new Battlefield was at an all-time low after 2042. Hopefully, Battlefield 6 delivers. I’ve added the game as, basically, a preview.

All Battlefield Games In Release Order

Over more than two decades, EA has published roughly 17 mainline Battlefield games, most of which are considered to be among the best first-person shooters of their respective years and platforms. The series has visited World War 1, World War 2, Vietnam, fictional 2000s wars, future conflicts, and ultra-futuristic settings. While not every release went on to achieve greatness, most of them have plenty of positives to offer, and their single-player content is generally worth revisiting all these years later.

Before highlighting the best Battlefield games, I put together a table listing all the entries in release order.

Upcoming 2025 Game: Battlefield 6

After the disappointing Battlefield 2042, excitement around a new entry was at an all-time low, especially since you could argue that EA had not produced a great game in the franchise since 2016. However, to the publisher and developer’s credit, Battlefield 6 has been building up momentum rather nicely, to the point that it seems to have some hype now! Yes, who would have thought that, in the year 2025, people would once again be looking forward to a new Battlefield​​​​​​? Just to be clear, I’m not criticizing this development, as I’ve been yearning for a great new Battlefield for years at this point.

With Call of Duty going full Fortnite and getting quite a bit of flak for it, Battlefield 6 seems positioned to provide the grounded shooter that the market has been screaming for. Multiplayer will, obviously, be the main selling point, but the game also looks primed and ready to have a pretty ambitious campaign that is set in modern times rather than during historical conflicts. EA describes the story as a “Global Scale Campaign,” with players being part of the Marine Raiders charged with stopping the world’s collapse. Sounds good on paper, and the execution will hopefully match it.

Battlefield 6 is set to go through a few open betas before launching in October 2025, giving it a chance to build more anticipation while potentially ironing out some bugs and issues. The multiplayer trailer emphasized widespread tactical destruction and all-out warfare, two things that should be synonymous with the franchise.

16

Battlefield Play4Free

A Free-To-Play Version Of Battlefield Focusing Strictly On Multiplayer

A largely forgotten multiplayer game, Battlefield Play4Free states its selling point right in its title. Taking ideas from Battlefield 2 and Bad Company, the game adopted the franchise’s standard structure for a free-to-play model, which naturally came with a plethora of premium products that could provide players an advantage. While the shop was not great, the title still had something to offer during its era, including a decent selection of maps, vehicles, and weapons.

Play4Free struggled to justify its existence as its stripped-down content was hardly going to sway die-hard fans away from the franchise’s main releases. It might have worked as a gateway product for newcomers to online multiplayer shooters, but the game was not attractive enough to last for more than a couple of years.

15

Battlefield Heroes

The Only Third-Person Battlefield Game Ever

A free-to-play spin-off browser game, Battlefield Heroes offered PC players a stripped-down but still enjoyable online experience. Although limited in modes and customization, this title was decent for what it aimed to provide, and Heroes also saw Battlefield switch to a third-person perspective.

This was an entry-level shooter game aimed at younger players, something reflected by Heroes‘ cartoonish visuals and simplified features, and it was closed on July 14, 2015. EA never tried the third-person formula again in any other Battlefield game after Heroes.

14

Battlefield 2042

Trying Out A New Formula With The Series That Didn’t Succeed

The most recent release in EA’s franchise, Battlefield 2042 is solely a multiplayer experience, something that main entries in the franchise had previously avoided. However, the elimination of a single-player mode is hardly the reason behind this game’s low score; no, that primarily comes down to its inadequate launch state and a severe lack of content.

Battlefield 2042 shows flashes of potential through its large-scale battles and Portal mode, but the game needed more time in the oven before its release. At launch, DICE’s title struggled to strike a chord with players, so much so that many returned to previous Battlefield games. Since then, 2042 has received quite a few updates that have sought to improve the base experience, and it is now in a better place.

The problem was that DICE ditched the class system in Battlefield 2042 and introduced heroes, who come with special abilities while having access to the same array of weapons that other heroes can. The developers also increased the server capacity from 64 players to 128 players. While all of this seemed exciting before release, it didn’t take players long to realize that the older Battlefield systems worked much better, and then developers began to roll out updates in the span of a few years to bring back the same old system.

13

Battlefield Hardline

Changing The Setting From Military Wars To Street Criminals Vs Cops

Hailed as a “brand new,” more personal-centered experience, unfortunately, Battlefield: Hardline failed to live up to the billing. The foremost criticisms of the game center around its flat and weak storyline that failed to emphasize the characters’ development. However, the stealth mechanism brings refreshment to the title and is worth every penny.

Engineered using the Frostbite 3 engine, Battlefield: Hardline was the last game developed by Visceral Games before the company’s shutdown in 2017. The game did have some innovations in the gameplay, but they just didn’t fit Battlefield’s DNA. The vehicular combat was more about civilian cars rather than military vehicles. One game mode, Hotwire, also tasked players with driving a specific car around the map and staying alive to score as many points as possible.

12

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat

The First Battlefield Game To Release On Console With Multiplayer Modes

Rendered obsolete by Bad Company, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat nevertheless deserves recognition for bringing EA’s license to consoles. A Battlefield 2 spin-off, Modern Combat lacked the depth and satisfaction of its PC companion’s gameplay, but it worked well enough as a simplified shooter designed to cater to the console scene in the mid-2000s. Outside of nostalgia or novelty, there is little reason to revisit Modern Combat in this day and age.

It was a cross-generation game that was released with only campaign mode for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but an upgraded version with multiplayer was then released on Xbox 360. Modern Combat was the first shot at consoles, and it did deliver a decent 24-player multiplayer experience, which was a good first step.

11

Battlefield 2142

The Only Time That Battlefield Depicted A Futuristic Warfare

More from the future world, Battlefield 2142 is set in the new Ice Age of the 22nd century with two superpowers of the world, the European Union and Pan Asian Coalition, fighting over the Earth’s unfrozen territories of North Africa and the Middle East.

2142 was the first Battlefield game not to have the US as the main protagonist, which was refreshing, and interestingly, it was designed for great multiplayer campaigns as it allows up to 64 players on one server.

10

Battlefield 5

Following Battlefield 1’s Solid Foundation And Experimenting With Battle Royale

Like Battlefield 1, which is based on the events of World War I, Battlefield 5 served as its continuation as it centered around World War 2. Although by no means bad, the game was nowhere near as well received as its predecessor. The core gameplay is generally among the best in the series, and the maps are quite good for the most part, but everything else about the package tends to be divisive.

Battlefield 5 didn’t get as much applause as its predecessor because it didn’t bring any big new features. It just delivered the same core gameplay to a new map with a new variety of guns and vehicles.

After Electronic Arts released Battlefield 2042 though, the community started to realize what a gem Battlefield 5 was. So, they flooded back to the Battlefield 5 servers and made it more popular than the most recent entry. And the problem with Battlefield 5 was the lack of refreshment. Coming directly from World War 1 to World War 2 just didn’t excite the community that much.

9

Battlefield 1943

A Multiplayer-Only Entry That Remained Exclusive To Consoles

Another multiplayer-only game, Battlefield 1943 barely qualifies as its own thing because its maps were taken from Battlefield 1942; however, since the latter was not released on consoles, this updated version earned its place.

Featuring two factions and three classes, Battlefield 1943 allows up to 24 players per map, which was more than good enough in the late 2000s. A cool addition was that the final map, Coral Sea, was only unlocked once the player base achieved 43 million kills.

8

Battlefield: Bad Company

The Beginning Of The Best Sub-Franchise In The Battlefield Series

There is never a better way to kick off the Frostbite engine era with Battlefield: Bad Company. Released in 2008, Bad Company was a promising start for the engine and garnered praise for its atmosphere and graphics which were way ahead of its time.

Bad Company centered around an army battalion of cannon fodders named “Bad Company,” consisting of Private Preston Marlowe, Terrence Sweetwater, George Gordon, and Sergeant Samuel D. Redford, fighting off the fictional First Russo-American War. Although the main story is a little short at just 7.5 hours, there’s enough extra content on offer in Bad Company to keep players busy for quite some time. The average completionist time is a whopping 56 hours, thanks in large to some challenging trophies and achievements.

7

Battlefield Vietnam

Improving The Core Features Of The First Game In A New Setting

Not to be confused with 2010’s Bad Company 2: Vietnam expansion pack, Battlefield Vietnam was a standalone game released in 2004. As the title suggests, Battlefield Vietnam is set during the infamous Vietnam War that cost plenty of lives from both the Vietnamese and American sides.

It was built using the same engine as the Battlefield debut title, and it’s impressive how EA took real-life historical settings and events like the 1968 Battle of Huế and implemented them into the game. Battlefield Vietnam has one of the longest campaigns in the series, with the main story lasting for around 14 hours. The lack of trophies and achievements does, however, provide little incentive to replay missions. Still, given the game’s aging visuals, a single playthrough should be enough for most.