Battlefield Studios and EA will open a new round of closed Battlefield Labs tests that focus on hosting tools and Portal server browsing. The sessions will let players try player owned servers and an early server browser inside the Portal community tab. This testing is aimed at seeing how the tools work in practice and at gathering feedback from the community.
The Labs environment is a private experimental space where work in progress features are tested with players. The builds may be rough and some content may be in alpha state. The goal is to move faster on balance and UI changes by using direct player feedback from these closed sessions. Players who join will shape how features are refined before launch.
Server Browser Test
The early server browser will appear in the Community tab of Battlefield Portal. Players will be able to search for verified Portal experiences with shortcodes and then pick from a pre filtered list of active servers. Testers can also host their own server and change descriptions tags and game rotations to see how the tools perform. The team will focus feedback on accessibility and UI clarity rather than on final polish.
EA and the studios also confirmed that Portal servers can be persistent. That means community hosted servers can remain listed in the browser even when they are not active. Persistent server listings make it easier for groups to return to the same shared experiences and to build long term communities around custom rules and maps.
Combined Arms Maps
Alongside the hosting tests players will get access to large combined arms maps. Operation Firestorm returns as a reworked classic map that supports vehicles and long range combat. Mirak Valley is a new map built for open battle and for running large scale fights with tanks quad bikes and aircraft. These maps give the studios an opportunity to test balance and vehicle systems on a larger scale than previous betas.
What testers should expect is a work in progress experience. The builds in Labs are not final. Players will see UI rough edges menu options that change and gameplay that may feel unstable. The studio explicitly asks for feedback on how easy it is to set up servers how clear the browser is and how well the maps handle combined arms play. That feedback will influence final design choices ahead of the October launch.
How to take part and what to look for
Players who already signed up for Battlefield Labs will receive invitations for the new play sessions. Those who are not in Labs can follow official channels for future openings and for instructions on how to join. When testing focus on server discovery speed server creation flows and whether the browser filters return useful matches. Also test rotations and persistent server visibility to see if the listing stays accessible over time.
This Labs phase gives the community an early chance to test classic style server browsing alongside modern Portal tools. The hosting work will be important for how players create and find persistent community experiences in Battlefield 6. Expect more updates from EA and from testers as Labs runs and as the team tunes features toward launch.