Battlefield 6 has been a series of ups and downs this past month. Following the series’ biggest launch ever, the game’s RedSec spin-off has caused surprise ire, and features such as custom search were completely broken by design on release.
One issue that fans have been butting heads with is the heavy use of bots in Battlefield 6 multiplayer, AI-controlled teammates and enemies that fill the virtual skirmishes to keep matches at a high player count.
In a popular Reddit thread, players explained that they are constantly joining bot-filled lobbies, even in the US’ East Coast on a Saturday afternoon, which should be the highest traffic period for the game. Additionally, players in other countries are seeing even more bots than most players.
“In American Latina we are experiencing the same,” one player said. “A lot of lobbies with only 6 or 8 players, and filled with bots…”
In a thread on Twitter, Battlefield 6 lead producer David Sirland defended the use of bot players in the game, and explained why and when they should be joining matches. Sirland explained that bots should only be present in a game at start if the “pre-round takes longer” than around 3 minutes which causes bots to fill in the remaining slots per-side on a team.
“At that point, the game starts, and you can play with the bots instead of waiting,” Sirland explained. “Other players in the same region matchmaking on that same playlist will join this server (as it has you on it). Each time a player joins, a bot leaves.”
This only happens until each side has 24 players each with the remaining 8 players per-side open for any human players to join. Sirland explained that this is done to start matches as fast as possible for all players, but especially those in lower-population areas that may struggle to find human players.
“The alternative to doing this, would be full on waiting (possibly forever) to play on the playlist of your choice in regions with low population,” Sirland said. “But to fill a server (the first in the region) – you need to stay with the bots.”
Responding to fans in the same thread, the lead producer doubled down on saying that “bots are only there to seed servers so they start. the alternative would be no server under those circumstances”. Despite this, fans are still reporting that bots are staying in games for the entire match instead of dropping out as they’re supposed to.
Additionally, Sirland explained that “new players” will be stuck in matches early n with “onboarding bots”, but these shouldn’t exist after a few matches. The Battlefield 6 lead claimed that players “need to stick it out” with the bots until matches start populating with human players, but also stated that the team will “test longer wait times for the seed bots to kick in”.
