Battlefield 6 is getting a free trial next week with a decent selection of maps and modes

Battlefield 6's second-ever free trial, and the first in 2026, is upon us.

Battlefield Studios has announced that Battlefield 6 is going free to play for one week next week. Well, a portion of the game is, anyway, as part of a free trial that will include some of the game’s most popular modes and maps.

Though it does not encompass the entirety of the game, the free trial is fairly generous. Here’s what to expect.

For starters, the trial kicks off Tuesday, March 17 and will run until the following Tuesday, March 24. The trial will be accessible from Battlefield Redsec, the already free-to-play portion of the game.

Once downloaded, you’ll find a new Battlefield 6 Free Trial section in the main menu. Because Redsec and Battlefield 6 multiplayer share progression, if you played the former at any point, you’ll be able to pick up from where you left off.

The same is also true the other way around; if this is your first time with Battlefield 6, all your unlocks will carry over to the full version, as well as to Redsec if you decide stick with the free-to-play off-shoot.

Image credit: Battlefield Studios, EA.

Once it kicks off, you’ll find three playlists to choose from. Casual Breakthrough, All-out Warfare, and a third playlist showcasing the new Nightfall game mode and its associated map.

All-out Warfare is what you come to Battlefield for, and that playlist features Conquest, Breakthrough, as well as BF6’s newcomer Escalation - all large-scale, combined arms game modes. They will be playable across four maps. You get to play on two from Season 2: Contaminated, and Hagental Base, one from Season 1: Eastwood, and Mirak Valley from the base game.

Casual Breakthrough is based on a playlist that already exists in the core game, and it’s really designed as a nice on-ramp for new players. It also offers less intense gameplay, perfect for people grinding unlocks.

Casual Breakthrough is limited to just 16 real players (eight per team), with the rest filled up with bots. You earn the same amount of XP in those matches, except when you interact with bots, so killing a bot will net less than a human player. Outside of that, unlocks, Challenges and all other things that don’t depend on stat-tracking can be done within.

In the trial, the Casual Breakthrough playlist includes Hagental Base, Contaminated, and Eastwood.

The most interesting is the third playlist, in part because its content will also be available to owners of the full game for the first time right alongside free-to-play players. Nightfall is a playlist exclusive to the Hagental Base map.

This is a very small map, so the mode selection here is Team Deathmatch, Squad Deathmatch, and Domination. Under Nightfall conditions, lights across the entire map are turned off, so you’re going to have use your NVGs to be able to see. This is also a god opportunity to try out weapon attachments that specifically work under low-light conditions, which typically don’t get much use in multiplayer.

March 17 also marks the launch of the second stage of Battlefield 6’s Season 2, which comes with the aforementioned Nightfall content, as well as a big new update - so the timing works out nicely for everyone.