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Over the weekend, the game developers introduced a fresh playlist titled Relaxed Breakthrough. In essence, this mode mirrors the regular Breakthrough format but features a few key changes:

• Each team includes just eight human participants, with the rest made up of 32 bots.
• Actions done by human gamers award full XP, while AI activities offer reduced XP.
• Just a pair of maps are available: Siege of Cairo and Empire State.
• Features like Dogtags, achievements, and career stat updates have been turned off.

In short, this mode delivers on its name: it's a casual version of Breakthrough. At face value, you might think it's a good idea, as it provides additional choices for players looking for alternative methods to enjoy the game. However, if video games has shown one thing, it's that not everyone will be happy. In other words, many Battlefield 6 players are mad.

Community Reactions: Anger to Praise

"Gamers prefer human opponents. Don't repeat the mistakes of your competitors," states a response to the official announcement. "Absolutely shocking concept," says another. At the same time, in community forums, one user notes, "It's unclear where we are headed with this game," while another details everything they consider to be broken in the game: "Resolve glitches, fix drone glitch, correct rocket mechanics, adjust aiming after sprinting, improve hit detection. We don't need this bot mode."

On the other hand, amid the criticism, there are players sharing how much they're enjoying the new mode. "It's enjoyable to warm up, real players keep it from being a total farmfest but it's quite laid-back," reads a forum post. "The community doesn't understand that there are gamers who have lives and don't play this game 24/7. Allow them to strike a balance," states a different comment. One reply on Twitter explains that as they're "a parent gamer with busy schedules, this is perfect for me," and someone else applauds the mode for "avoiding intense competition."

Valid Concerns and Player Feedback

Despite the support, there are valid points to criticize Casual Breakthrough. Some users have highlighted that it will make queue times more extended for other modes because of the large amount of playlists currently available. On a similar note, certain regions already encounter mostly bots in the existing playlists. It also seems a little backwards that the mode does not begin without a required amount of real players, despite it focuses mostly on combat against bots.

Finally, one of the biggest grievances is that Battlefield Portal was promised to provide full XP, even against bots, but that got canned when they tried to eliminate XP farming from the system. Thus this new playlist seems like the community compromising halfway, as per a Reddit comment. Another describes this addition as the devs "dropping the ball so hard, I had so much fun in the initial release, what prompted them to adjust it?"

Future Prospects: Adjustments Be Made?

If Battlefield Studios has demonstrated something so far with Battlefield 6, it is that they're paying attention and responding to player input. Tasks that were overly hard were adjusted rapidly, as did the required Redsec challenges. It is likely that, if their data indicates this recent mode is underperforming to their standards, they will not hesitate to make further modifications.