MeinMMO editor Dariusz tested the “Top Gun” event from Battlefield 6 and wants a mode to remain in the game – it went very badly for him.
Pilots, put on your helmets, fasten your straps, and turn up “Danger Zone” because the new “Top Gun” event starts in Battlefield 6 on August 18. The update brings a rework of Wake Island along with a new sniper, a new jet, and two limited-time playable modes.
I have already tested the two new modes and the rework of Wake Island and will present my impressions here.
A mode from hell, for demons calling themselves “pilots”
With the second part of Season 4 and the start of the “Top Gun” event, there will be the limited-time mode “Fighter Sweep”. Here, a total of six 2-player teams compete against each other. The individual duos sit in 2-person jets, where one flies and the other can operate weapons and look around freely.
The teams pursue two objectives:
- a) Destroy as many ground targets as possible to score points
- b) Shoot down as many enemy jets of other players from the sky to gather points and disrupt them while destroying targets
The team with the most points at the end or the first to reach 1,000 points emerges as the winner. So it really comes down to your skill as a pilot – or rather the lack thereof.
In Battlefield, I am a really bad pilot, especially with jets and planes. Helicopters are manageable if I’m currently practicing. I’m just horrible, and we shouldn’t beat around the bush about it.
My experience in Fighter Sweep was terrible, really really bad. I never want to play this mode again.
I had hoped to get a capable pilot as a random teammate and actively support him as a shooter. However, my pilot was only slightly better than me.
We got brutally beaten down.
Barely had we taken off, and we were already back in the spawn menu. The other teams shot us down so quickly that we didn’t even have time to make a promising approach to the ground targets. And my support as a shooter was also rather unsuccessful, as guided missiles were primarily being used. It truly came down to the skill of the pilot.
While the opponents bravely maneuvered below the radar, preventing our targeting, we were just happy if we didn’t crash into the cliffs of the map without external influence.
Nevertheless, I have to draw a surprising conclusion:
I want Fighter Sweep to stay in the game forever
Pilots have a really hard time in Battlefield 6. There is far too much that shoots them down with automatically guided missiles. No matter if vehicles or gadgets – too many anti-air weapons are “fire and forget”. Real dogfights between top-tier pilots are routinely interrupted by us vulturing infantry. And even though I’m really bad as a pilot in Battlefield, I can say from other games:
Long, intense dogfights are a hell of a lot of fun!
So I strongly advocate for an official, permanent mode in Battlefield 6 where pilots can compete undisturbed – just like we infantry have game modes like Team Deathmatch, Domination, or King of the Hill without vehicles.
I do not expect such a mode to attract a huge number of players. But if the basic principle of the mode, for example, exists in Portal, friend groups – where no one is really a good pilot – can engage in small, fun duels without needing to rely on broken custom experiences. In private lobbies, Fighter Sweep might even be a good mode for training since it offers dedicated ground targets to practice approaches.
How experienced pilots think about Fighter Sweep, of course, I cannot assess. I simply do not belong to them. My gut feeling tells me though, that the mode would benefit from having fewer lock-on weapons and that pilots and gunners should primarily aim themselves. So, adjustments according to the needs and desires of good pilots would be welcomed.
The idea of having a pure jet-only mode in Battlefield 6 sounds great to me in principle, and I hope there will be a permanent mode like this for our pilots!
Wake Island is better than ever because a harmless ship capsized
At the end, we played Conquest and Escalation on the revamped version of Wake Island, which joins the game with Part 2 of Season 4. Overall, we get a successful implementation of the iconic map.
The developers have noticeably changed the map at several points again. Numerous cover options have been added, buildings and other structures are different from before, and there is a completely new flag in the middle of the water – a wreck of a container ship.
Thanks to the new shipwreck, there are now new options to cross from one side of the archipelago to the other without having to walk along its full length or cross the bay by boat: zip lines. The ship capsized and let tons of containers fall into the water over which you can pass to reach the wreck and the other side of the island. It’s particularly fast on the zip lines that are placed here and there.
The shipwreck results in Wake Island playing significantly differently – or at least it can – than in the past. But that’s good.
I have used the path over the wreck and the zip lines several times, and as a passionate infantryman, I was grateful not to be reliant on vehicles or have to undertake long footpaths.
Are you looking forward to the new implementation of Wake Island, or would you have preferred to see another legendary map return? Let us know in the comments!
Quite nice, but…
Finally, I would like to say a few words about the new sniper and the also limited-time mode Carrier Assault. The sniper was called “Interdictor” in the test and is basically a HTI. It is meant to be the sniper rifle with the longest range in the game.
Especially in the game mode Carrier Assault on Tsuru Reef, the sniper rifle worked very well when used at the necessary distance. Like the other sniper rifles in Battlefield 6, the new piece of equipment cannot take down an enemy with a single shot to the upper body at close range. Since I prefer to go wild in close quarters, I quickly switched back to other weapons. Long-range snipers will definitely have fun with it though.
Short range is also the keyword for the mode Carrier Assault. Here, you capture flags with artillery batteries that then shoot at the enemy aircraft carrier. Over time, this inflicts damage on the ship, and you can also attack it from the inside – or defend your own.
The fighting on the aircraft carrier was a lot of fun for me. Once the battles shifted from the archipelago more into the interior of the ship, the match gained a different dynamic. I liked that, but it didn’t also blow me away. The mode was nice, a pleasant change, but nothing more. I will not miss it when it is gone in a few weeks.
Even the new content shows me again what I said at the start of Season 4: The game is now almost where it should have been at release in October 2026. You can read the full thought process here: Battlefield 6: Finally, the shooter from EA is worth the €70 price tag, but a release sin is still not resolved 9 months later
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