A YouTube video about the color scheme of Battlefield 6 has sparked a debate in the community about alleged downgrading. The developers have also already commented on the matter.
The Battlefield community is once again in an uproar. About a week after the end of the second public beta phase, a YouTube video has sparked a debate about the color scheme of the new installment in the series.
The criticism: Battlefield 6 looks much worse than in the alpha screenshots; the new color grading makes the visuals look washed out and dreary. Thousands of comments have been posted on Reddit, but the developers at DICE have already responded with a rebuttal.
What happened?
On August 23, the previously unknown YouTuber Vic’s Corner posted a video on his channel titled Why Battlefield 6 Looks Like THAT (De-graded)
. In it, the creator, who is obviously well versed in the post-production of films and video games, spends 13 minutes discussing in detail the color scheme of the Battlefield maps shown in the beta so far.
Vic’s Corner begins his analysis with older Battlefield games and explains that each game in the series has a slightly different color scheme in order to create a specific visual identity. This process of coloring through filters, effects, and post-production is called color grading.
Battlefield 3, for example, relied on a blue color palette, while BF 2042 focused primarily on high saturation. Battlefield 1, on the other hand, had very minimal color grading, which is why many players perceived it as the most realistic-looking Battlefield game.
Too blue, too much Battlefield 3
With regard to Battlefield 6, the YouTuber notes that many players have commented negatively on the visual filters currently being used during the beta. The look is too blue, too much like Battlefield 3
, which makes the maps appear washed out.
For comparison, the YouTuber showed images in which he used filters he created himself to mimic the graphic style of an earlier alpha version of Battlefield 6 from an internal test. The Cairo map looked much yellower and more saturated there, whereas in the previous beta, the visuals seemed dreary and very bright – but also more realistic.
On Reddit, the video sparked a heated debate about the allegedly poorer visuals. Players criticized that the alpha version had been much more readable. There were fewer distracting reflections and fewer dust particles in the air. Others, however, wrote that they did not find the color grading distracting at all. We have linked a corresponding thread below:
Almost nobody complained about the filters in the beta until a YouTuber told them to think that way.
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What does DICE have to say about this?
The Reddit debate has not gone unnoticed by the Battlefield developers, of course. In one of the discussion threads on color grading, DICE’s Global Community Manager Kevin Johnson weighed in.
He writes that Battlefield 6 doesn’t simply use a filter that is applied to all maps, as many other games would do. Instead, the game reacts organically to which map you are currently playing on and where you are on the battlefield, adjusting the visuals accordingly. Indoor and outdoor areas are color graded differently, for example.
However, the problem doesn’t seem to be that big, because during the beta phase of Battlefield 6, no one complained about the colors; the criticisms were completely different. It’s only since Vic’s Corner’s YouTube video that a debate has suddenly flared up that isn’t really a debate at all. The discussion about the color scheme is purely aesthetic. A little more or less saturation doesn’t really affect the gameplay.
What do you think of the color controversy surrounding Battlefield 6? Do you prefer yellow and bright or blue and cold? Write your thoughts in the comments!