Portal 101: How to Create Verified Experiences on the Battlefield Portal Builder

Ready to create a brand-new Battlefield 6 experience? The power of Portal is in your hands.

The Battlefield Portal Builder, updated significantly from its original Battlefield 2042 version, makes it even easier to create your own Community Experience, all while adding more options that will only continue to expand throughout Battlefield 6’s post-launch development. 

If you already know what Portal is and how to access Community Experiences - detailed in this Portal 101 guide -  then you are ready to build your creation. However, this guide focuses on the Battlefield Portal Builder available on the EA.com website, specifically creating a Verified Community Experience.

For this guide, we recommend right clicking this text and opening the Battlefield Portal Builder in a new tab to follow along.

Note: Looking for the Battlefield 2042 Portal? It’s on the same website; just select the 2042 option to continue creating on that game.

Entering the Portal - Crafting Your Way to Play Step-by-Step (Or Skipping Around)

First, make sure you are connected to the internet. The Battlefield Portal Builder is web based, so as long as you have a system that can access an internet web browser, your Operating System or flavor of web browser does not matter. Battlefield Portal Builder also has a more streamlined mobile web version, better for making a standard Verified Experience with small tweaks.

After logging into your EA Account on the Battlefield Portal Builder, your first screen should be the home page, which features your created Community Experiences and a big button labeled “Create Something New.” Press that button and select from two options:

• “Verified Modes” - Recommended for your first Portal Builder Community Experience.  Create a Community Experience that modifies existing official game types. At launch, Conquest, Rush and Breakthrough are available to use, with more game modes to come in upcoming seasonal updates. Custom gameplay scripting and level edits are not permitted in Verified Modes, but they offer full Progression and are easier to create.
• “Custom Portal” - Recommended after having some Portal Builder knowledge, or if you know exactly what you want to create. Use the full suite of Portal Next Tools to craft your experience, including custom gameplay logic scripting and level editing, available using the Portal Next SDK. Note: these experiences will offer Modified XP when played.

Depending on what you choose, you’ll either click an empty template (Custom Portal) or mode (Verified Mode) to start building on. If you are following along with the Portal Builder open, then let’s select the “Verified Mode” template and start swimming among all the settings.

You are now free to move about the Portal Builder. Until you hit “Publish,” you can modify everything from “Settings” down to “Rules Editor” in any order. You can even jump back and forth between these tabs as you make your Community experience.

Below is a general overview of what each tab contains. While in these tabs, we highly recommend using the helpful “tooltips” next to most options, indicated with a lowercase “i” icon. Click them for more information about each setting, especially those that are added in future updates after Battlefield 6’s launch.

Settings

An overarching and simple menu; here, you can reselect the game mode for your Community Experience (e.g. Conquest, Rush or a Custom mode), as well as edit the “Squad Spawn” behavior for all or some teams.

Map Rotation

The most critical step besides Publishing. If you do not choose a map rotation, one will be chosen for you.

Select from all available Battlefield 6 maps to play your Community Experience on. Pressing the “+” next to the map name adds it to your rotation. Choose as many - or as few- as you wish for your experience.

Want to modify an existing map? Then the Portal SDK Tool is what you’re looking for; this screen has a handy direct download link, and we have more information about it in this guide.

Teams

Determine the maximum number of players and number of teams, as well as if AI bots should be present in your Community Experience. Assign them across teams or put them all on one team against human-controlled players.

Additional options that can be tuned for individual teams or across all teams include friendly fire, damage modifiers and the ability to perform Squad Spawns and Revives. 

Modifier

Dozens of switches, toggles and sliders for significantly altering your Community Experience are at the ready within these subtabs:

Gameplay’s most notable modifier is to enable “Closed Weapons,” which restricts Class Loadouts to only that Class’ Signature Weapon category, as well as Carbines, DMRs, Shotguns and Sidearms. Other modifiers in this tab include enabling, or disabling, stationary weapons (like A-A turrets) on the map, aim assist and reflecting friendly fire damage, as well as sliding all throwable projectile speeds up or down from their standard values.

Soldier modifiers include options like disabling (or keeping) prone, sliding, aim down sights, strafing while sprinting and health regeneration, tuning damage and even granting unlimited ammo. 

Vehicle modifiers range from editing their health to granting them unlimited ammunition, or just removing all vehicles from the Community Experience entirely. 

User Interface modifiers allow you to change what players see in-game on their heads-up display (HUD). For example, you can toggle whether the compass and mini-map are shown, change the scoreboard type, enable or disable spotting and change the maximum in-game distance for icon visibility. 

For some modifiers, such as in Gameplay and User Interface, there is the option to only apply them to specific teams, but only when creating a Custom Community Experience. In Verified Community Experiences, all modifiers will impact all teams.

Finally, there is a dedicated Bots tab to tune bots separately from player-controlled soldiers, when Bots are enabled. In addition to most of the Soldier modifiers that can apply to these Bots, there is also the option to switch between PvP (Player vs. Player) and PvE (Player vs. Enemy, with Bot being “Enemy”). PvP means that Bots are only there to “fill the lobby” and will be replaced with any human player who enters the Community Experience, while PvE means that the Bots are persistent and stay in the fight even if more human players join the Community Experience.

Restrictions

Here are all the options to restrict specific Classes, Weapons, Attachments, Vehicles and Gadgets for all or specific teams.

Publishing, Testing and Playing Your Experience

Finished editing your Community Experience and ready to publish? While you could just double check all those tabs, then head to the final tab labelled “Publish,” there is also the option to test your experience in game before putting it up for developer review and community use.

Save your Community Experience, then boot up Battlefield 6 and head to Portal. Selecting the title “My Experiences” will take you to all experiences created, both Published and Unpublished. Set up your game and invite friends directly from your EA Social list; while your Community Experience is Unpublished, your friends can only find and join your experience while you are playing it.

Testing is a golden opportunity to see how the Community Experience plays before sending it out to the Battlefield 6 community. Even the greatest creators appreciate a gut check, whether they verify their product’s quality with their colleagues, friends or perform a true self-edit.

Now that you have tested your experience, let’s get it published:

The first step is adding a name and description; be specific about your Community Experience, but brief enough for it to fit in a preset character limit (64 for a title, 256 for a description). The second step is to use an image that showcases your creation out of the ones available in the Web Builder.

The final step before publishing is to review your Community Experience. On this final screen is information about Progression - whether your Community Experience offers full progression or modified earn rates - and Experience Validation, which can show errors that prevent publishing.

Above: The in-game Portal Experience Browser. This is where your Community Experience will live, after it is published! Remember to use the Experience Code from the Battlefield Portal Builder to access your Community Experience directly.

Once your Community Experiences is published, pat yourself on the back; you have now contributed to the Battlefield 6 Experience Library. At this point, your Community Experience will be labelled with one of the following statuses: 

• Unpublished: When an experience is saved in drafts, pre-verified, but not visible to other players or to moderation. At this stage, you can edit, publish or play your experience and invite friends to test in-game. You can also export it as a file, duplicate it to another template or delete this file.
• Pending: What you will usually see right after submitting a Community Experience to Moderation. You can still edit your experience and play it alone or with friends in-game, or export, duplicate or delete it.
• Under Review: After your Community Experience is picked up by Moderation, the “Pending” status will change to Under Review. You can no longer edit the Community Experience; to do so, you must Unpublish it. Otherwise, you can still play the Community Experience in-game (alone or with friends), duplicate it or delete it.
• Action Needed: This means your Community Experience has errors that are flagged by moderation. Don’t fear failure! You can go back to editing your experience, then re-publish it when all errors are solved. 
• Published (Live): Your Community Experience has been approved and published to the community. Congratulations!

Quick Tips from the Developers - Portal Builder

1. Don’t Overthink It. A Modified Mode Community Experience can be as small as having an infantry-only Conquest, restricting a few weapons or even having a set map rotation. Ambition is always welcome, but don’t think you need to create something totally brand-new; sometimes, the simplest modifications can be the most popular Community Experiences.

2. Map Rotation: Choose, then Choose Wisely. You must select at least one map for your Community Experience, otherwise maps will be randomly selected. With that in mind, try choosing maps that fit the mode, theme or concept of your experience. For example, if you are creating a close-quarters, small team tactical experience, try choosing a variety of small Combat Zones across multiple maps.

3. Jump Around! Remember: after choosing either a Verified Mode or Custom Portal Experience, you can continue to move between every tab in no particular order. Sometimes, you may know your desired restrictions before your map rotation; not only is that okay, but we also encourage you to keep bouncing between tabs for a free-flow creation process.

4. It’s Your Battlefield. Make no mistake, Battlefield 6 Multiplayer will have developer-curated experiences at launch and beyond, but you - and the community - have the opportunity to create whatever experience you desire in Portal. Tune those weapons and add restrictions to what you think is right, create brand-new modes, play the maps you want to play… and, of course, dive into the Portal SDK Tool to expand your horizons and perfect your craft.