Battlefield Heroes features a modified conquest mode providing each team 50 tickets and eventually one flag at the start of the round. Killing enemies and holding more flags than the opposing army will progressively reduce their number of tickets. The game also features matchmaking, to keep players of the same level together. Developers of the game have talked about levels going as high as 40 or 50, although the current level cap is 30. The two armies are called the National Army (possessing a red base color flag) and the Royal Army (possessing a blue base color flag). The game is third-person only at this point, but senior producer Ben Cousins has stated if first-person is really wanted, it may be added in at a later date. Spawn times are 5 seconds (compared to the 15 seconds of previous Battlefield games), allowing for less waiting and more action. Players do not pick spawn points since the game has an "Intelligent Spawn System" putting players closest to the nearest battle. Sometimes the player will be parachuted behind enemy lines.
Like previous Battlefield games Battlefield Heroes has a class system, which has been reduced to three basic classes: the Soldier (a mid speed, mid health mid ranged weaponed medic), Gunner (a heavy weaponed, high health slow class), and Commando (a low health speedy snipe and knife specialist).
Players may also purchase bandages to regenerate health and wrenches to regenerate vehicle armor points (which is the same as health for out of vehicle players).
There are several vehicles in the game, all patterned after real vehicles of the Second World war. Included are two "light tanks", in the style of the M4 Sherman and the Panzer III/IV. Wheeled Vehicles are also in game, and are patterned after the Kubelwagen and the Willys Jeep. Finally there are two aircraft, these are also made to look like the Messerschmitt BF 109 and the Spitfire. All vehicles have passenger slots, the tank with passenger space where the turret should be, the wheeled vehicles with two passengers, and the Aircraft with a slot on each wing. All passengers, except the driver, can fire their normal hand-held weapons, and use abilities, from inside the vehicle.
Players can be awarded achievements by a mission system which allows missions to be completed in order to get valor points.