Tactical or tacti-cool, that is the real question when it comes to cosmetics in modern FPS games—or, maybe, the secret third answer: completely absurd and silly collaborations or celebrities, like most of the recent ones in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which is [[link]] odd considering I thought it was supposed to be a Cold War-fallout 90s spy thriller.
Nevertheless, it's a topic that's plagued since the very beginning, though its slate of strong military skins at launch was refreshing, to say the least. But with the launch in the rearview mirror now, all eyes are on to see whether or not that grounded, military feeling is completely thrown to the wayside.
For full clarity, these are just the cosmetics I saw while flicking through the menus in the preview event, so I can't comment on how these skins are packaged, like which ones are from the battle pass or store bundles, nor how much either costs. Likewise, there could also be ones I've missed or weren't included in this preview build.
Nevertheless, the Unflinching and Regiment skins for the NATO Assault are very toned-down, realistic outfits that are very much in line with most of the launch skins. The same could be said for the Health is Wealth Support skin, which is basically a standard military get-up but with a slight pattern on the legs and brighter green and yellow colours. Pax Armata gets a skin that's basically the Danish Frogman Corps, so that's both realistic and cool.
Where I think people might have more issues is with the more stereotypical Call of Duty-like skins that chuck on more layers of equipment like a Swiss army knife. The Fearmonger skin features a white skull face mask and markings on the helmet and vest, similar to the new Samhain skin, which also features skeleton gloves hanging on its vest.
The Counter Accusation skin sees the Engineer donning a hood to max out their aura, while Spiteful Mirage reminds me of Modern Warfare 2019's version of Ghost thanks to its long cape. There's the Wicked Grin skin, which is seemingly a free Halloween gift from the store, that has…a wicked grin.
The point is, these new skins are generally unobtrusive and fit with Battlefield 6's overall aesthetic, just like the launch offerings, but if you found that one black and green skin to be a step too far, then I'm afraid to say that there's more where that came from.
As much as I'll always rather restrained cosmetics over needlessly decked out 'tacti-cool' outfits, I'm also not blind to EA's ambitions to make Battlefield 6 a successful live service, and time and time again, we've seen that means skins lots of people will actually buy. While Season 1 is actually rather restrained, I'm now going to move the goalposts as I cautiously await the Season 2 skins in the new year…