Henry Jackman’s darkly action-centric Battlefield 6 score feels like a cross between the title franchise and the composer’s work for 2022 film The Gray Man, with the sheer percussive force of the latter driving the iconic Battlefield theme to intensely dramatic heights throughout. Shame about the distorted electronics though.
This is the first time I’ve reviewed a Battlefield soundtrack on this site, and if you’re new to this particular game arena – the first thing you should know is that the main draw of a Battlefield score is the iconic main theme. Originally composed by Joel Eriksson, it’s a bold, memorable and triumphant piece of music that appears in some form on pretty much every album, and as such has gone through a wide variety of orchestral and electronic stylings and variations over the years – including one particularly grating variant for Battlefield 2042, by Hildur Guðnadóttir – until finally arriving here for Battlefield 6, the latest entry in this highly popular first person shooter franchise – and scored by Henry Jackman, no less! And so, it’s with the title theme’s new iterations that this review will begin; “Main Theme” and “Warsaw Theme”.
The former is the opening track of the new album, and a sudden tense crash of deafening electronics kicks things off. These electronics then border on the edge of distortion for the first minute or so before the music then simmers, and noble brass begins to play on a backdrop of dramatic percussion – hinting toward the Battlefield theme as it does so. I’ve always found it interesting actually that the dramatic percussion as mentioned repeats in a very Terminator-sounding motivic manner, though this certainly does help to add to the epic nature of the overall theme. Anyway – the brass and percussion continue building in orchestral thunder and intensity throughout the track with those imposing electronics screeching aggressively, thematic hints abound, until a triumphant finishing crescendo is then finally reached. The latter track – “Warsaw Theme” – then does a little more thematically; it opens with those same distorted, almost grating electronics that started the prior piece, before thankfully then giving way to grandiose brass, synth and thunderous drums playing the full Battlefield theme for several loud and unapologetically heroic renditions. We only hear the actual theme for about ninety seconds, but damn – it is a great ninety seconds. Full of triumphant orchestral grandeur, its an absolute Standout moment for the score – it’s just a shame you have to go through a fair bit of distorted electronics to get there.
With the main theme fading out, “A Changed World” starts the score proper as it simmers moodily with stealthy, almost espionage-esque electronics before percussive hints toward the Battlefield theme then start to pick up towards its end. The subsequent “Ambush” then delves into worrisome action with wary drums and low-pitched synth holding a tense pace throughout, though this rapidity fades for “Unconquerable Spirit” afterward in favour of slower and much more melancholic strings (though eerie electronics do start to overtake in the back half). Moody ambience then settles for the next few cues with the occasional aggressive burst of electronics, before dramatic percussive hints toward the Battlefield theme reprise for the increasingly in-your-face “Halo Jump”. Action piece “Brooklyn Assault” then starts as moodily as prior cues before emboldened percussion – that sounds rather similar to Jackman’s work for The Gray Man in fact – starts to rise, with grandiose brass notes following similarly suit for a rather heroic crescendo finish. The downtrodden espionage-y atmosphere from earlier then reprises for “Some Men Have To Play The Heroes” and “Insurmountable Odds”, before deafeninig dramatic tension occupies the much more unnerving “The Rise Of PAX Armata”.
Anxious drums and surging punches of brass are centre stage for the first minute of “Dagger 13”, with electronics then building to a moment of roaring heroism in the back half with notes from the Battlefield theme held emphatically high. The music then briefly sinks back into stealthy atmosphere for “Tying Up Loose Ends” and “The Battle’s Never Over”, though this doesn’t last for long as grand interspersions of the Battlefield theme then return on enthusiastic electronics for “Clear And Hold”. With the end of the album now fast approaching, “Taking Sectors” leans back into dramatic action territory with bursts of intense, in-your-face electronics playing against the same Terminator-esque percussive backdrop from the “Main Theme” and “Warsaw Theme” cues, before final piece “Battlefield: The After-party” then crashes out the score with a thunderous electric guitar playing the Battlefield theme in about as deafening a manner as possible.
Overall, Henry Jackman’s score for Battlefield 6 is big, bold and dramatically dark – feeling almost like a cross between Battlefield and Jackman’s score for 2022 film The Gray Man in its stylistic use of imposing, unrelenting percussive force. The iconic title theme for the game franchise of course appears, both fully and in frequent percussive scatterings – with its best rendition being through the powerfully propulsive “Warsaw Theme” – but I do feel it could have been utilised a little more throughout the album especially given Jackman’s orchestral/electronic expertise. This is also compounded by the fact that there’s an awful lot of moody espionage-y ambience here, and that the composer does use these irritatingly distorted electronics a lot too – see the opening minute of “Main Theme” – which unfortunately makes parts of the action music genuinely rather unpleasant to listen to. For both issues, a few more bold, grandly brass-heavy thematic renditions would have helped break the dullness up a lot I feel. That, and more of the big moments where the orchestra breaks through for triumphant bursts of sheer heroism – see “Brooklyn Assault” and “Dagger 13”, which are a little few and far between for a Battlefield soundtrack.
All-in, less distorted electronics and more moments of pure Battlefield heroism please, Mr. Jackman.
Score: 6/10
Standout Cues: Warsaw Theme, Brooklyn Assault
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