Like many others, I bought this game hoping to enjoy the PvE mode, just as I did for four long years in Battlefield 2042. It took several months, but eventually the developers managed to find a good balance, allowing the creation of PvE servers—even with the infamous “moderate XP” tag. That was fine for me: I could unlock weapons, attachments, weekly challenges, and progress through the battle pass. All of this was possible mainly thanks to something I’ve only recently come to fully realize. The bots in BF2042, while far from any human-like behavior, still had a certain level of challenge. They worked together, captured objectives, drove vehicles, supported each other — and, most importantly, were managed by algorithms infinitely better than those controlling the bots in BF6.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but in Portal I stumbled upon a Full XP server with bots where you can start a match with just one human player. Full XP, all maps, solo play with bot teammates against a team of bots. Each team has 24 members instead of 32 — I have no idea why DICE imposed that limit. But the worst part, in my opinion, is that it’s not even half as fun as BF2042, precisely because the bots here seem to have received an embarrassing downgrade. Some stand still for no reason, others sprint past you completely ignoring your presence, and a few are somewhat more aggressive. If you shoot at them, they don’t even try to find cover like the bots in BF2042 used to do. And let’s not even mention their ability to drive vehicles — absolutely embarrassing! Helicopters just hover in place most of the time. All this just to say that perhaps one of the reasons DICE doesn’t want players to enjoy purely PvE servers is because they’re fully aware of the poor quality of their current AI work. Maybe many players don’t care much about this aspect — some might just want to shoot dumb bots to relax after a day at work without jumping into PvP. But for me, it’s sad to see that after years of AI development and steady improvements in BF2042’s bots, we’ve ended up with BF6 — a great game in terms of gunplay, but one that represents a shameful step backward in bot quality. What a pity! What a missed opportunity... and how sad to see that all the progress achieved in previous installments has been completely ignored or forgotten. Developers don’t want to allow full PvE play? Well, judging by the current results, maybe that’s for the best.
