🔗 Share this article

Recently, Battlefield Studios launched a new playlist titled Casual Breakthrough. To put it simply, this mode mirrors the regular Breakthrough setup but features several notable adjustments:

• Every squad includes just eight human participants, with the remaining made up of 32 bots.
• Activities done by human gamers award full XP, while AI activities provide lower rewards.
• Only two maps are available: Cairo Siege and Empire State.
• Elements like Dogtags, accolades, and career stat updates have been turned off.

So essentially, the playlist lives up to its name: it's a casual take of Breakthrough. At face value, one could assume it's a good idea, as it provides additional choices for players looking for alternative methods to have fun with the title. However, gaming history have taught us anything, it is that not everyone will be happy. In other words, a lot of Battlefield 6 fans are upset.

Player Responses: Anger to Praise

"People want real players. Don't repeat the errors of your competitors," states a response to the official announcement. "Absolutely shocking idea," comments another. Meanwhile, on the Battlefield subreddit, one user remarks, "I have no idea where we are going with this game," while another lists all the issues they consider to be problematic in Battlefield 6: "Resolve glitches, address drone issues, correct rocket mechanics, fix [the] bloom after sprinting bug, improve hit detection. We don't need this AI-heavy playlist."

On the other hand, amid the criticism, there are players sharing how much they're liking the recent addition. "It's very fun to warm up, human participants keep it from being a complete grind but it's very relaxed," says one Reddit comment. "The community fails to see that there are players who have lives and can'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 parent gamer with limited time, this is perfect for me," while someone else applauds the mode for "not being overcompetitive."

Constructive Concerns and Player Input

All that said, players have constructive reasons to criticize Casual Breakthrough. A few folks have highlighted that it could increase wait times more extended for other modes because of the large amount of options in the game already. Similarly, certain regions already encounter AI-filled matches in the existing playlists. Additionally, it appears somewhat counterintuitive that the mode won't start without a required amount of real players, even though it focuses mostly on combat against bots.

Finally, a major grievances is that Battlefield Portal was promised to offer complete rewards, including AI matches, but that was removed when they tried to remove XP farming from the mode. So this new playlist feels like the player base compromising in the middle, as per forum feedback. Another describes this addition as the devs "making a mistake significantly, I had great enjoyment in the first couple of days, why did they feel the need to adjust it?"

Future Prospects: Adjustments Occur?

Should the development team has proven anything to date with Battlefield 6, it's that they're listening and responding to player input. Tasks that were overly hard were adjusted rapidly, just like the required Redsec challenges. It is likely that, if their data indicates this recent mode isn't performing to their expectations, they won't be shy to make further modifications.