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Recently, Battlefield Studios introduced a new playlist called Casual Breakthrough. In essence, this option mirrors the regular Breakthrough setup but features several key changes:

• Every squad has only 8 real players, with the rest filled by 32 bots.
• Actions done by human gamers grant full XP, while AI activities offer lower rewards.
• Only two locations are available: Siege of Cairo and Empire State.
• Features like Dogtags, accolades, and career stat updates have been turned off.

So essentially, this mode delivers on its title: it offers a laid-back take of Breakthrough. At face value, one could assume there's nothing wrong, since it provides additional choices for players looking for alternative ways to have fun with the game. But, gaming history has shown one thing, it's that you can't please everyone. In other words, a lot of Battlefield 6 players are mad.

Player Responses: Anger to Support

"Gamers prefer real players. Don't repeat the mistakes of your competitors," states one reply to the mode reveal. "Absolutely shocking idea," says a different user. At the same time, in community forums, a player notes, "I have no idea where we are headed with this game," and another details all the issues they believe to be broken in the game: "Resolve glitches, address drone issues, correct rocket mechanics, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, fix awful hit registration. We don't need this bot mode."

On the other hand, for every complaint, there are players sharing how much they're liking the new mode. "It's very fun to practice, human participants prevent it from being a total farmfest but it's quite laid-back," reads one Reddit comment. "The community doesn't understand that there are players who have lives and can't play this title all the time. Allow them to strike a balance," adds another. A response via social media clarifies that as they're "a battledad with busy schedules, this is perfect for me," and another applauds the mode for "not being overcompetitive."

Valid Criticisms and Community Feedback

Despite the support, there are valid points to criticize the new mode. Some users have highlighted that it could increase queue times even longer for other modes because of the large amount of playlists currently available. Similarly, certain regions often face mostly bots in the existing playlists. Additionally, it appears somewhat counterintuitive that the mode does not begin without a minimum number of real players, even though it primarily centers on fighting AI opponents.

Lastly, one of the biggest complaints is that Battlefield Portal was promised to provide complete rewards, including AI matches, but that got canned when they tried to remove XP farming from the mode. So Casual Breakthrough feels like the player base meeting them in the middle, according to forum feedback. Another describes this mode as the devs "making a mistake significantly, I experienced great enjoyment in the initial release, why did they feel the need to change it?"

Looking Ahead: Will Changes Be Made?

Should Battlefield Studios has demonstrated something so far with Battlefield 6, it's that they're listening and responding to player input. Tasks that were overly hard got fixed rapidly, just like the specific battle pass objectives. Chances are that, should analytics indicates this recent mode isn't performing to their standards, they will not hesitate to change it again.