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Tom Cruise’s price tag too high? Battlefield 6 Top Gun collab somehow doesn’t include Maverick
Battlefield 6 is set to receive a Top Gun crossover as part of a collaboration between EA and Paramount Pictures, but notably excludes Tom Cruise's iconic Maverick character. Instead, the update will feature supporting characters from Top Gun: Maverick, continuing the franchise's presence in gaming without its most recognisable star, whose likeness rights are presumed to have been too costly to secure.
The collaboration, arriving with Battlefield 6's season four update, will add Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), Lt. Robert "Bob" Floyd (Lewis Pullman) and Adm. Solomon "Warlock" Bates (Charles Parnell), alongside Top Gun-themed skins and cosmetics. The wider update, launching on 18th August following season four's start on 21st July, introduces the F-18 Super Hornet and F-14 Tomcat aircraft, a reimagined Wake Island map, and two new modes — Carrier Strike and a Gauntlet mission in REDSEC — with season four focused on naval warfare.
In short
- Battlefield 6's Top Gun collab omits Tom Cruise's Maverick character
- Rooster, Bob and Warlock join instead, with new skins and jets
- Update lands 18th August; season four begins 21st July
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Tom Cruise is the defining icon of the Top Gun franchise, and any collaboration claiming to represent the series is fundamentally incomplete without him. The crossover's legitimacy and appeal rest almost entirely on the character audiences care most about, and settling for supporting players risks making the entire update feel like a compromise. If the budget could not accommodate the franchise's principal star, perhaps the collaboration should have been reconsidered or structured differently, as what is delivered may disappointingly underperform against what it could have been with Maverick included.
The case against
Securing likeness rights for major stars like Tom Cruise involves substantial costs that must be weighed against a crossover's expected commercial return. The collaboration still delivers meaningful Top Gun content through authentic supporting characters, aircraft, maps, and new gameplay modes that serve the broader naval warfare theme. Rather than overpaying for a single character, the developers made a prudent business decision that brings valuable and substantial content to players whilst maintaining financial discipline—a reasonable trade-off in the complex world of licensing negotiations.
Explained simply
Battlefield 6 is a large-scale military video game where players engage in team-based combat. Video game developers frequently partner with films and other entertainment properties to add content featuring those films' characters and worlds into their games.
Top Gun is an action film franchise centred on elite navy fighter pilots, recently reinvigorated by the successful film Top Gun: Maverick. Adding Top Gun characters and aircraft to Battlefield 6 appeals to fans of both the game and the films.
Tom Cruise has played the lead character Maverick since the original Top Gun film in 1986, making him the franchise's most recognisable face. His absence from this collaboration has drawn attention because obtaining the rights to use an actor's likeness in video games is expensive and legally complex.