Season 4’s second phase landed in Battlefield 6 on August 18, bringing the Top Gun crossover with it. The drop adds two modes built around jets and carriers, a limited-time challenge track with its own currency, a new sniper rifle, and the return of Wake Island. A free-to-play trial runs until August 25th, so the whole package is playable even without owning the game during that window.
Quick answer: Play Carrier Strike or Fighter Sweep, complete Top Gun challenges to bank Ace Medals, then spend 100 of them in the Event tab to unlock the Interdictor sniper rifle before the 27-day event window closes.
Ace Medals: How the Top Gun event currency works
Ace Medals are the only thing standing between you and the event rewards, and they come from exactly one place. Completing Top Gun challenges awards them, and there is no alternate route — no battle pass tier, no purchase, no match-score conversion. The challenges are live for 27 days, and the medals stop being earnable once that window shuts.
Spending happens in the Event tab of the Main Menu. Ten rewards sit there, and you can buy them in any order you like. There is no unlock chain forcing you through cheap cosmetics first, which is why most players grab the weapon early and fill in the skins later. Clear all ten and the game hands over the Ace Aviator skin as a completion bonus.
Full Top Gun reward list and Ace Medal costs
| Reward | Type | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Interdictor | Sniper Rifle | 100 |
| Crucible of Victory | Player Card Background | 20 |
| G-Force Reckoner | PW5A3 Skin | 150 |
| Defiance | F-74A Seacat Skin | 50 |
| Hanging Edge | KBR Mark II Knife Skin | 100 |
| Adrenaline Spike | M16A4 Skin | 150 |
| Crested Courage | Weapon Charm | 30 |
| Phoenix Sniper | PSR Skin | 150 |
| Rogue State | SU-57 Skin | 100 |
| Payback | M240L Skin | 150 |
Interdictor sniper rifle: How to unlock it and how it plays
The Interdictor is the one reward with real gameplay consequences, so it deserves your first 100 Ace Medals. Buy it from the Event tab the moment you can afford it. Once it appears in your Recon loadout, the unlock is confirmed. After the event ends, the rifle is expected to move behind a separate set of challenges instead, which makes the event window the cheapest way to get it.
It fires explosive rounds and is tuned for targets past 100 meters. The trade-offs are severe. Recoil is heavy enough to throw off any quick follow-up, and the reload is slow, so it falls apart against multiple attackers at close range. Treat it as a tool for deleting a specific problem — a mounted gunner, an entrenched Recon player — rather than a general-purpose rifle.
Carrier Strike: Objectives, ship health and boarding
Carrier Strike drops two 32-player teams onto opposing aircraft carriers, with a single island between them. That island holds five capture points, each tied to an artillery position. Hold artillery, and those guns start firing rockets at the enemy ship.
A health bar for the enemy carrier sits at the top of your HUD and drains as rockets connect. Controlling more artillery sites speeds that damage up considerably, so the ground fight over the island is really a fight over how fast the enemy ship dies.
Once the enemy carrier drops below 50 percent health, boarding opens up. From there the flow mirrors Breakthrough: attackers plant a bomb and protect it until the timer runs out, defenders rush to disarm. The first charge goes in the hangar. After it detonates, a second plant becomes available in the reactor room, and that one destroys the ship outright.
Fighter Sweep: Scoring rules for the jets-only mode
Fighter Sweep strips everything back to aircraft. Six two-man crews compete across a set of islands scattered with destructible stockpiles. Scoring is simple, and it rewards hunting other players over farming targets on the ground.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Destroy an enemy aircraft | 50 |
| Destroy a stockpile | 15 |
The duo with the highest total when the round ends takes the win. Because no infantry teammates depend on you here, it is also the least punishing place to learn jet handling — a bad run costs you points and nothing else.
Note: The two-seat jets that make these crews work, the F-18 Super Hornet and the F-14 Tomcat, are a Season 4 addition. Battlefield had not shipped two-seater fixed-wing aircraft since Battlefield 2 in 2005.
Wake Island: What changed in the returning map
Wake Island is back, the same crescent-shaped landmass that has followed the series since Battlefield 1942. Two carriers sit on either side and launch troops at the match start, with the fight converging on a large airfield in the middle of the island.
Two changes stand out in this version. Ziplines now run from the ships to the mainland, cutting down the slow approach that has always defined the opening minutes. A wrecked ship also sits off the coast near the center, giving boats cover and blocking sightlines from snipers positioned on the far side. It is a tighter map than recent additions like Golmud Railway, and it plays that way.
Top Gun characters and Battlefield REDSEC content
Three Top Gun characters appear in-game, voiced by the actors who played them on screen: Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd (Lewis Pullman), and Adm. Solomon “Warlock” Bates (Charles Parnell). Matching character skins and cosmetics ship alongside them.
Battlefield REDSEC players get a Gauntlet mission built around the crossover as well — a jets-only run set on a reworked version of Tsuru Reef, the Pacific map that opened Season 4 back on July 21.
Season 4’s third and final phase, Tidal Strike, arrives on September 15 with a collection event tied to naval contracts and challenges. The Top Gun rewards will not carry over, so the Interdictor and the Ace Aviator skin are worth clearing while the challenge track is still live.
