Hands-On: The Top Gun Battlefield 6 Event Is Off To A Good Start

Aug 17, 2026 - 19:15

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Hands-On: The Top Gun Battlefield 6 Event Is Off To A Good Start

Published Aug 17, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT

Chris is a Gaming Editor at ScreenRant. He has been a professional writer since 2009, and has written for top TV, comics, movie, and video game outlets like Engadget, Polygon, Destructoid, and more. He brings with him an expertise in every game genre, no matter how niche or mainstream.

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Top Gun and Battlefield both have timeless qualities. For the former, the film series is bolstered by strong lead performances and memorable action scenes. The latter stands out by bringing massive digital battles to the forefront, setting itself apart from the competition both when itdebuted in 2002 and beyond.

So seeing them cross over is a no-brainer, and they fit together far better than a lot of other wackier crossovers. The stage is set for a fantastic mid-season event, including celebrity cameos from the Top Gun side and a mode entirely focused on aerial dogfights, with no ground support whatsoever.

Time will tell if this has the juice to propel players through the rest of the season, but so far, so good.

Yes, It Has Top Gun Music

When booting up our preview version of the Battlefield 6 x Top Gun crossover, we heard the instrumental theme song right away, and Danger Zone during an opening cutscene. It was a good sign that at least some of the boxes for Top Gun were checked, including several cast member cameos, all of which are centered around Top Gun: Maverick.

Guest stars include Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd (Lewis Pullman), and Adm. Solomon “Warlock” Bates (Charles Parnell). The obvious misses here are Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and Jake "Hangman" Seresin (Glen Powell), especially the latter. The day that Cruise shows up in a video game will be an interesting day, as he doesn't even appear in the Mission: Impossible titles, but Glen Powell would have been a good get.

Voices help add some authenticity to the seasonal-themed update, even if they’re sparing. After a match, you'll get a quick cutscene based on how you did, and although it gets old after the first few times, it's a neat touch if you're a huge fan of Top Gun.

The Top Gun Event Has Multiple Modes

The real crown jewel of the Top Gun event is the modes. Here are the two additions this time around:

Carrier Strike, a new Battlefield 6 mode that pits naval, air, and ground forces against one another as teams seek to destroy the enemy aircraft carrier in a showdown, creating an incredible blending of Battlefield and Top Gun’s defining characteristics.

Gauntlet: Fighter Sweep. Test your aviation skills in high-intensity dogfights with the new 2-seat fighter jets. You’ll need to sweep in to obliterate hostiles while strategically avoiding enemy fire. Send the rival squadron crashing down to clinch victory.

Gauntlet: Fighter Sweep was my first taste of Top Gun in Battlefield 6, and it's safe to say that it's going to appeal to specific types of people. Since this is fully focused on fighting other players from jet to jet, you won't be able to roam around the map on foot or in any other vehicle. It's standard for locked modes like this, but fighter pilot flight with the new jets takes some getting used to.

For instance, if you spawn into a jet that's already piloted, and your partner is crashing into walls on purpose, it can get grating as there's no way to pop out of the jet. In certain cases, it can be hard to spot other players if they're mostly hanging out on the edges of the map near the point of no return; but that's something the community should sort out after a few days of play.

Jet interactions are pretty simple. You'll have access to a decent array of tech as you wield machine guns, missiles, afterburner boosts, and countermeasures (chaff). The flow is mostly to bait out countermeasures, then strike with missiles, and use machine guns in the meantime.

You can take down enemies or supplies on the ground in this mode for points, but if you're an ace pilot, taking down multiple enemy planes is pretty easy to do to keep them off the scoreboard. There's enough depth here to ensure that there's more of a skill ceiling than some other vehicles.

There's a "Jet 101" video to help teach you how to fly, given that these jets are enhanced a bit from what you'd normally expect. In all, it's a nice side mode/diversion. I can see people trying this out, going back to the core modes, then coming back every so often.

Top Gun Is A Decent Excuse To Come Back To BF6

Carrier Strike on the Tsuru Reef map, on the other hand, won me over immediately, and you could tell that was the case for the majority of players in our testing period via in-game chat. Your job is to both protect your carrier and destroy the enemy team's stronghold.

It's essentially domination/capture the point at first, but once the carrier defenses go down, you'll assault them in earnest by planting explosive charges and eventually destroying the core. Things get really hectic once even one carrier becomes vulnerable, as players rush to vehicles to quickly get across the map and finish the match.

This leads to all sorts of weird skirmishes in places you'd never expect, like side rooms in the giant carriers, or even random plots of land surrounded by water. Jumping out of a helicopter and parachuting into the water, getting shot at, then diving and re-emerging in another section of the enemy carrier is a fun time.

Tsuru Reef is a huge map that's befitting of the Battlefield franchise, so it's great that it finally made it over in Season 4. Water and air-based vehicles, along with ground transportation, are key to making this map feel larger than life, and playstyles that favor taking out vehicles thrive here.

I felt like I could try out a lot of different things I never would have in a standard match, which is a great sign that Carrier Strike has staying power. It's a fantastic mode that always has a lot going on, given its 32-player minimum. Expect this one to propel a lot of players through the rest of the season, and I hope it becomes a permanent mode.

Season 4 of Battlefield 6 kicked off on July 21 at 4AM PT, and the Top Gun event is scheduled for 12PM BST on August 18 as the mid-season opener.