Battlefield’s new battle royale mode will have the ‘deadliest ring in BR’ and ‘second chances’—and here’s how to play it this week

The first testing period for Battlefield’s new battle royale mode will go live in the invite-only Battlefield Labs test server this week, EA announced today.

Touting a new map built for the BR experience, transport vehicles, tactical destruction, four player squads, and “second chances” to get back into the fight via the Support class and Mobile Redeploy options, EA said this will be “Battlefield’s twist on the classic formula” of battle royale.

EA also touts how this mode will have “the deadliest ring” in battle royale, as it will instantly kill players on contact, creating a bigger sense of urgency than some other modes where the encroaching circle deals slow damage over time.

“With urgent warnings as the fire approaches, soldiers will be pushed into more intense firefights as the game space continues to shrink,” the game’s devs said. “There’s no jumping in and out of it, no using it for cover, no walking through it – if you get caught in it, you are done. We’re excited to see how the ring affects the pace of the game and how it creates spontaneous showdowns.”

The BR mode for Battlefield will also include the game’s trademark classes to help keep it on brand. Each game, players will begin with two gadgets from a chosen class and earn XP throughout a match to unlock new traits that “enhance their chosen class and give both them and their squad a tactical edge in the match.”

The announcement didn’t give a concrete release date for the BR mode in Battlefield Labs, but the devs say the testing client and players will be utilized to help shape the mode to be the best it can be before officially launching.

For the foreseeable future, Battlefield’s BR will be restricted to Battlefield Labs on PC. Players can sign up on EA’s website to get invited for playtests, but your luck may vary. I haven’t even gotten accepted yet myself, for example, so the pool of available players testing it may be small.

Battlefield previously tried a battle royale mode called Firestorm in Battlefield V, but the mode never caught on in a way that EA would have hoped for, similarly to other games that tout the last-player-standing mode like Call of Duty: Warzone or Fortnite.

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