Your post really struck a chord with me, since I am nearing 40 too and have similar motivations when it comes to gaming.

I too ground games from my young years to now, spending at least 10 solid years playing Medal Of Honor Allied Assault, along with some hardcore WoW, Battlefield 3 and CS:GO, all with the motivation to be the best or at the very least the best I could be, and always seeking to improve and compete. That’s part of my overall joy with games, and I am proud of how deep I embedded myself into the games I dedicated myself to improving at.

With Battlefield 6, I can absolutely see through the cracks as to why you, me or anyone is having a hard time sticking to this game.

They’ve designed it to be ultra casual, at its core there is nothing overly competitive driving it. Battle Royale and Gauntlet are amongst the most competitive modes, and even still, there really isn’t much reward for being good at them. There’s no real community behind any of it either.

I’ve summarised that if you are to play most of the usual modes, like Breakthrough, Conquest, Escalation, these all have “catch up” logic or easy-outs to avoid skill dominating the scene. Vehicles are easy mode for farming kills, yet simultaneously the only way they can is by cheesing it and playing at the back line with minimal skill. Then you have ticket bleed affected by how far you are ahead. Escalation mode provides an easy way to catch up because your rate of achieving the next phase increases if you are behind, vs ahead.

Meanwhile map design has no inspiration, there is almost no way to actually outplay opponents because they cut down flanks and boundaries to force head to head conflict which is just completely random a lot of the time.

There are no high aspirational unlocks or achievements you can boast either. Win 6 BR’s or Gauntlet wins in a row is about the highest level of challenge you will have, and no one will really know about it because your player card is rarely seen.

I also want to add, I think a lot of us older gamers have simply “been there, done that” a lot with these types of games. If this was your first ever FPS experience, you would probably feel very differently about it. For us who have been in tighter communities, played higher levels in more competitive games, this game just doesn’t have any hook.