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Over the weekend, Battlefield Studios launched a fresh game mode titled Relaxed Breakthrough. In essence, this option mirrors the standard Breakthrough setup but features a few notable changes:

• Each team includes only eight real players, with the remaining made up of 32 bots.
• Actions done by real players grant full XP, while bot actions offer reduced XP.
• Just a pair of maps are available: Siege of Cairo and Empire State.
• Elements like Player tags, achievements, and career stat updates have been turned off.

In short, the playlist delivers on its name: it offers a casual version of Breakthrough. At face value, you might think there's nothing wrong, as it provides additional choices for gamers looking for alternative methods to have fun with the title. However, gaming history have taught us anything, it's that not everyone will be happy. In other words, a lot of Battlefield 6 players are mad.

Community Reactions: Anger to Support

"People want human opponents. Avoid making the errors of your competitors," states one reply to the mode reveal. "Absolutely shocking idea," comments another. Meanwhile, on the Battlefield subreddit, a player notes, "It's unclear where we are headed with this title," and another details all the issues they consider to be problematic in Battlefield 6: "Fix bugs, fix drone glitch, correct rocket mechanics, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, fix awful hit registration. We do not require this bot mode."

On the other hand, amid the criticism, there are players sharing how much they're liking the new mode. "It's very fun to practice, real players keep it from being a complete grind but it's very relaxed," reads one Reddit comment. "The community fails to see that there are players who actually go outside and don't play this game all the time. Allow them to strike a balance," adds another. A response on Twitter clarifies that as they're "a battledad with busy schedules, this is perfect for me," and another applauds the mode for "not being overcompetitive."

Constructive Criticisms and Community Input

Despite the support, there are constructive reasons to criticize the new mode. A few folks have highlighted that it could increase queue times more extended for other modes because of the sheer number of options currently available. Similarly, certain regions often face mostly bots in the existing playlists. Additionally, it appears a little backwards that the mode does not begin without a minimum number of human gamers, even though it primarily centers on fighting AI opponents.

Finally, a major grievances is that Battlefield Portal was meant to offer full XP, including AI matches, but that was removed when they tried to remove bot farms from the mode. Thus Casual Breakthrough seems like the player base meeting them halfway, according to a Reddit comment. Another labels this mode as the devs "making a mistake significantly, I had great enjoyment in the initial release, why did they feel the need to change it?"

Looking Ahead: Will Changes Be Made?

Should the development team has proven anything so far with the latest installment, it is that they're paying attention and responding to player input. Tasks that were overly hard got fixed very quickly, as did the specific battle pass objectives. It is likely that, if their data indicates this new playlist is underperforming to their expectations, they won't be shy to change it again.