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Over the weekend, Battlefield Studios launched a new playlist titled Relaxed Breakthrough. To put it simply, this mode mirrors the standard Breakthrough format but includes a few key adjustments:

• Each team includes just eight human participants, with the rest filled by 32 bots.
• Actions performed by real players award complete experience points, while AI activities offer lower rewards.
• Just a pair of maps can be played: Cairo Siege and Empire State map.
• Features like Player tags, accolades, and stat tracking are disabled.

In short, the playlist lives up to its title: it's a casual version of Breakthrough. On the surface, you might think it's a good idea, since it provides additional choices for players seeking different ways to enjoy the game. However, gaming history has shown one thing, it is that you can't please everyone. Which is to say, a lot of Battlefield 6 fans are mad.

Player Reactions: From Fury to Praise

"People want human opponents. Avoid making the errors of your rivals," reads one reply to the mode reveal. "Truly disappointing concept," says a different user. Meanwhile, in community forums, one user notes, "It's unclear where we are going with this game," and someone else details all the issues they believe to be problematic in Battlefield 6: "Resolve glitches, fix drone glitch, fix IVF rockets, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, improve hit detection. We do not require this AI-heavy playlist."

However, for every complaint, some gamers sharing how much they're enjoying the recent addition. "It's very fun to warm up, human participants prevent 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 have lives and don't play this title all the time. Allow them to find a middle ground," adds a different comment. A response via social media explains that as they're "a battledad with busy schedules, this is great for me," while another applauds the mode for "not being overcompetitive."

Constructive Criticisms and Player Input

All that said, players have constructive reasons to complain about the new mode. A few folks have pointed out that it could increase queue times even longer for other modes because of the large amount of options in the game already. Similarly, certain regions often face 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, even though it focuses mostly on fighting AI opponents.

Lastly, a major complaints is that Battlefield Portal was promised to offer complete rewards, including AI matches, but that was removed when they tried to remove bot farms from the system. Thus Casual Breakthrough seems like the player base meeting them in the middle, as per forum feedback. A different user describes this addition as the developers "dropping the ball significantly, I had great enjoyment in the initial release, what prompted them to adjust it?"

Future Prospects: Will Changes Be Made?

If the development team has demonstrated something to date with Battlefield 6, it's that they're paying attention and responding to player input. Assignments being too difficult got fixed very quickly, as did the required Redsec challenges. Chances are that, if their data indicates this recent mode is underperforming to their standards, they won't be shy to change it again.