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Over the weekend, the game developers introduced a new game mode titled Relaxed Breakthrough. In essence, this option resembles the regular Breakthrough setup but features several notable changes:

• Each team includes just eight human participants, with the rest made up of 32 bots.
• Activities done by human gamers award complete experience points, while AI activities provide reduced XP.
• Just a pair of locations are available: Cairo Siege and Empire State.
• Features like Dogtags, achievements, and career stat updates are disabled.

So essentially, the playlist delivers on its title: it's a laid-back take of Breakthrough. On the surface, one could assume it's a good idea, as it gives more options for players looking for different methods to have fun with the game. But, if video games have taught us anything, it is that you can't please everyone. In other words, many BF6 players are mad.

Player Responses: Anger to Support

"People want real players. Avoid making the mistakes of your rivals," states one reply to the mode reveal. "Absolutely shocking concept," says a different user. Meanwhile, on the Battlefield subreddit, one user notes, "It's unclear where we are headed with this title," while someone else lists everything they consider to be broken in the game: "Fix bugs, address drone issues, fix IVF rockets, adjust aiming after sprinting, fix awful hit registration. We do not require this bot mode."

However, for every complaint, some gamers explaining how much they're liking the new mode. "It's very fun to warm up, human participants prevent it from being a complete grind but it's quite laid-back," reads a forum post. "The community fails to see that there are gamers who have lives and don't play this game 24/7. Let them find a middle ground," states a different comment. A response on Twitter clarifies that as they're "a parent gamer with limited time, this is great for me," and another applauds the mode for "avoiding intense competition."

Valid Criticisms and Player Feedback

All that said, there are valid points to criticize Casual Breakthrough. A few folks have highlighted that it will make wait times even longer for other modes due to the large amount of playlists in the game already. Similarly, some areas already encounter mostly bots in the existing playlists. Additionally, it appears a little backwards that the mode does not begin without a required amount of real players, despite it primarily centers on combat against bots.

Finally, one of the biggest complaints is that a previous feature was meant to offer full XP, even against bots, but that got canned when they tried to eliminate bot farms from the system. Thus this new playlist feels like the player base compromising halfway, according to a Reddit comment. A different user describes this mode as the devs "making a mistake so hard, I had great enjoyment in the first couple of days, what prompted them to change it?"

Future Prospects: Will Changes Be Made?

Should Battlefield Studios has demonstrated something so far with Battlefield 6, it is that they're paying attention and responding to player input. Assignments being too difficult got fixed rapidly, as did the required Redsec challenges. It is likely that, if their data shows this recent mode isn't performing to their standards, they won't be shy to change it again.