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

• Every squad includes just 8 real players, with the remaining filled by 32 bots.
• Activities done by real players grant full XP, while AI activities provide reduced XP.
• Only two maps are available: Siege of Cairo and Empire State.
• Features like Dogtags, achievements, and stat tracking are disabled.

In short, the playlist delivers on its title: it offers a casual version of Breakthrough. At face value, one could assume there's nothing wrong, since it gives more options for gamers looking for different ways to have fun with the title. However, if video games has shown one thing, it is that you can't please everyone. In other words, many BF6 fans are mad.

Player Responses: Anger to Praise

"Gamers prefer real players. Avoid making the mistakes of your competitors," reads a response to the official announcement. "Truly disappointing concept," comments another. Meanwhile, on the Battlefield subreddit, a player notes, "It's unclear where we are going with this title," while another lists all the issues they believe to be problematic in the game: "Fix bugs, address drone issues, fix IVF rockets, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, improve hit detection. We do not require this bot mode."

On the other hand, amid the criticism, there are players sharing how much they're liking the recent addition. "It's very fun to practice, real players keep it from being a total farmfest but it's quite laid-back," says one Reddit comment. "This subreddit doesn't understand that there are players who have lives and can't play this game all the time. Allow them to find a middle ground," adds a different comment. A response on Twitter clarifies that as they're "a parent gamer with busy schedules, this is perfect for me," while another praises the mode for "not being overcompetitive."

Constructive Concerns and Player Input

Despite the support, there are constructive reasons to criticize Casual Breakthrough. Some users have pointed out that it could increase queue times more extended for different playlists because of the large amount of playlists currently available. Similarly, some areas already encounter mostly bots in the existing playlists. Additionally, it appears a little backwards that the mode won't start without a minimum number of real players, even though it focuses mostly on fighting AI opponents.

Lastly, a major grievances is that a previous feature was promised to offer full XP, including AI matches, but that got canned when they attempted to remove XP farming from the system. Thus Casual Breakthrough feels like the player base meeting them halfway, according to a Reddit comment. A different user describes this addition as the devs "making a mistake significantly, I had so much fun in the first couple of days, what prompted them to adjust it?"

Future Prospects: Will Changes Occur?

Should Battlefield Studios has demonstrated something to date with Battlefield 6, it's that they're listening and acting on player input. Tasks that were overly hard got fixed very quickly, just like the required Redsec challenges. Chances are that, should analytics indicates this recent mode isn't performing to their standards, they will not hesitate to change it again.