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Over the weekend, Battlefield Studios launched a new playlist called Relaxed Breakthrough. To put it simply, this option resembles the regular Breakthrough format but features a few key adjustments:

• Each team includes only 8 human participants, with the remaining made up of AI-controlled opponents.
• Actions performed by human gamers award full XP, while bot actions provide lower rewards.
• Just a pair of locations are available: Cairo Siege and Empire State map.
• Features like Dogtags, achievements, and career stat updates have been turned off.

So essentially, this mode delivers on its title: it's a casual version of Breakthrough. At face value, one could assume it's a good idea, as it provides additional choices for gamers looking for alternative ways to have fun with the title. However, gaming history has shown one thing, it is that not everyone will be happy. Which is to say, a lot of Battlefield 6 players are mad.

Community Responses: Anger to Support

"Gamers prefer human opponents. Don't repeat the errors of your competitors," states a response to the official announcement. "Absolutely shocking idea," says a different user. At the same time, in community forums, one user notes, "It's unclear where we are headed with this game," and another lists everything they believe to be broken in the game: "Fix bugs, fix drone glitch, fix IVF rockets, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, improve hit detection. We do not require this bot mode."

However, amid the criticism, some gamers sharing how much they're liking the new mode. "It's enjoyable to practice, real players prevent it from being a complete grind but it's very relaxed," reads one Reddit comment. "The community fails to see that there are gamers who actually go outside and don't play this game all the time. Let them find a middle ground," states a different comment. A response via social media clarifies that as they're "a battledad with busy schedules, this is perfect for me," while another praises the mode for "avoiding intense competition."

Valid Criticisms and Player Input

All that said, there are valid points to criticize the new mode. A few folks have pointed out that it will make queue times more extended for different playlists because of the large amount of playlists in the game already. On a similar note, certain regions often face AI-filled matches in the existing playlists. Additionally, it appears somewhat counterintuitive that the mode does not begin without a minimum number of real players, despite it primarily centers on combat against bots.

Lastly, one of the biggest grievances is that Battlefield Portal was meant to provide complete rewards, even against bots, but that got canned when they tried to eliminate bot farms from the mode. Thus this new playlist feels like the player base meeting them halfway, according to forum feedback. A different user labels this mode as the devs "making a mistake significantly, I had so much fun in the initial release, why did they feel the need to adjust it?"

Looking Ahead: Will Changes Occur?

If Battlefield Studios has demonstrated something to date with Battlefield 6, it is that they're listening and responding to player input. Assignments being too difficult were adjusted very quickly, as did the required Redsec challenges. Chances are that, should analytics shows this new playlist is underperforming to their standards, they won't be shy to make further modifications.