Developer DICE’s iconic first-person shooter is back in good form with Battlefield 6, and players are hard at work capturing flags and trading gunfire in large-scale battles. As dozens of players collide in massive fights, teamwork decides the outcome of each match.
If you want to keep your teammates in tip-top shape, you’ll probably gravitate toward the Support class. Support players are able to quickly revive any downed teammate with their trusty defibrillators, as well as drop supply bags that restore health and ammunition to nearby allies.
The support class is also extremely good at laying down the lead. Its signature weapon type is the light machine gun, or LMG, which is characterized by its high-bullet capacity magazines, high rate of fire and generally cumbersome frame. These weapons are great for suppressing enemies, which slows down their health regeneration.
There’s a wide array of LMGs in Battlefield 6, which means it might take you a little while to find the right fit for your play style. Some of these bullet hoses are suitable for close-range play, while others might allow you to contest sniper nests across long distances. Here are my favorite LMG builds in Battlefield 6.
The best LMG builds in Battlefield 6
There are eight different light machine guns in Battlefield 6, so you’re not hurting for options when it comes to setting up a bipod and laying down lead.
Most of these options are locked behind high level requirements or challenge completions, though, so it can be tough to figure out an effective loadout early on. Here are some accessible LMG builds for every possible situation.
L110 ‘Factory’
The L110 is the first LMG you’ll have unlocked when you start playing Battlefield 6, and it’s a solid workhorse of a gun. Its high rate of fire and extensive bullet capacity mean you’ll be able to keep enemies suppressed at a distance. However, this thing kicks like a mule unless you have a bipod set up.
To fix this, you’ll want to add the heavy extended barrel and grip pod attachments. These add-ons will make vertical and horizontal recoil more manageable, giving you more mobility during tricky firefights.
The red laser attachment helps tighten the hip-fire spread for those emergency situations where an opponent gets the drop on you in close-quarters combat, and crucially, enemies won’t be able to see the beam emanating from your weapon.
If you’re confident that you can handle the L110’s recoil, I recommend swapping out the regular bullets for tungsten-core rounds — they’ll shred through multiple enemies at once when you’re holding a tight sightline, like a hallway or a doorway leading into an objective.
M60 ‘Huntsman’
If you participated in the Battlefield 6 open beta, congratulations: You automatically unlock my favorite LMG upon opening Battlefield 6 for the first time. The M60 usually unlocks at player level 20, but beta players can use a special M60 Huntsman build straight away.
This LMG fires slower than the L110, but its recoil is more manageable, and it does more damage. As someone who likes to set up machine gun nests and pick enemies off from afar, the M60 has been the gun I’ve used the most so far in Battlefield 6.
However, players can’t change attachments on a prebuilt gun before they hit the level required to unlock its original factory variant. That means you can’t swap out attachments before player level 20, and you’re stuck with the awful vision-obscuring iron sights on the M60 until then.
Once you’re able to swap around the gun’s attachments, though, a 2x zoom and red dot sight is an absolute necessity for firing at medium- to long-range targets. Set up an alternative zoom on the side of the gun with basic sights to trade out the usual M60 eyesore for simpler iron sights when shooting close-range enemies. A double-port brake and vertical handgrip help control what little recoil the M60 has, and the red laser remains on this build in order to tighten hipfire spread.
RPKM ‘Carnivore’
If you’re not looking to set up a machine gun nest, there are some LMGs that support a more aggressive play style. The RPKM is one of these weapons, with stats that make it feel like a hybrid between a traditional light machine gun and an assault rifle. You can’t fire as many rounds before reloading, but you get some much-needed sprint speed and mantling mobility back.
The RPKM factory variant is locked behind player level 30, but there’s a much easier way to unlock this weapon for multiplayer modes. The RPKM Carnivore build is unlocked through completion of Battlefield 6’s nine-level campaign. You can beat the levels on any difficulty in order to unlock the RPKM.
The RPKM matches the M60’s damage per shot and even offers a higher rate of fire than my favorite weapon. This is all tempered by a very low magazine capacity for an LMG — the stock magazine holds 40 bullets — and very high recoil. You can use the RPKM to run and gun alongside your Assault-class teammates, but you probably won’t win as many gunfights across long distances.
Once you unlock the RPKM at level 30, a heavy extended barrel and some sort of vertical handgrip or bipod are must-have additions to your build. Swapping out the suppressor for a compensated brake also couldn’t hurt. These attachments will bring the recoil more in line with other LMGs, providing you with a manageable run-and-gun buzzsaw.