AI-controlled bots have become a significant part of online multiplayer games. You can find them in titles like Fortnite, Mecha Break, Marvel Rivals, and, most recently, Battlefield 6. Players have made it clear that facing too many bots often isn’t fun–and not the reason they play multiplayer games in the first place. A Battlefield 6 producer has now responded to that feedback.
“Bots enter the game on regular playlists only under these conditions: Players kickstart a lobby for a playlist, and the pre-round takes longer than X minutes (I believe three minutes),” said Battlefield lead producer David Sirland in a post. “At that point, the bots fill the server to the necessary limit to start the game.”
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.
but to fill a server (the first in the region) – you need to stay with the bots.
if you keep leaving because: 1: you see bots— David Sirland (@tiggr_) November 5, 2025
Sirland’s thread of posts explores why bots are needed at all in a game that has sold over 10 million copies. Once the set amount of time passes, players can either play with the bots or wait for more players to join. Every time a player enters, a bot will leave.
“Once 24 players per team have entered, the server is no longer seeded with bots, leaving the remaining slots for players as well (32v32),” Sirland continued. “These servers are all 64-player (or whatever the max of the playlist states)–not smaller ones at all.”
Sirland says the alternative to this system is for players to wait, “possibly forever,” in regions with low player populations. He notes that this bot system, designed to shorten wait times, is not the same as Casual Breakthrough–a mode that puts players in lobbies with more bots than players to help them complete challenges and progress without being stomped by more experienced players. There are also “onboarding bots,” according to Sirland, that populate some game modes alongside new players to help ease them in to online play.
