Since its introduction in Battlefield 1, Breakthrough has been the home of chaotic firefights, and that was no different when Battlefield 6 launched. However, following Battlefield 6’s latest update lowering the mode’s player count, Breakthrough is a fair bit less intense than it once was, and over 1,000 players aren’t thrilled about it.
Battlefield 6, despite being a hugely successful game, has experienced its fair share of controversy. Battlefield RedSec has been review bombed, players have leveled countless complaints at the game’s cosmetics, and challenge-focused battle pass progression has been a consistent point of criticism. Perhaps more divisive than anything else, though, is Battlefield 6’s map design, as many old-school players have bashed the shooter’s arenas for being cramped “meat grinders” that lack the scale longtime fans have come to expect from the series. As Battlefield Studios works to address this issue in future seasons, lowering the Breakthrough player count feels like a band-aid fix, yet it’s a plaster that many would seemingly want removed.
Why Battlefield 6 Fans Are Pushing Back Against Breakthrough’s Player Decrease
In traditional Breakthrough, and the launch version of the Battlefield 6 mode, Breakthrough featured two teams of 32 for a total of 64 players in any given match. Now, though, the mode has 24 gamers on both teams for a total of 48 players. There are several reasons that this change, which went unmentioned in the patch notes for Battlefield 6’s 1.1.1.5 update, has come under fire. The lack of chaos around every corner is just one of those reasons, as there’s more breathing room on each map than there was prior to the update. However, community reactions indicate that a decrease in players doesn’t make the maps feel bigger, just empty, so now players who enjoy infantry combat are just as unhappy as those who love vehicles and traversing huge warzones.
Battlefield Studios has mentioned that map size is “under review,” suggesting that map borders could be expanded or that future maps could emphasize size.
The negativity is highlighted in the above Reddit post from 1Aspect, which has over 1,200 upvotes that indicate numerous players are in agreement with this user’s stance that Breakthrough has become “terrible” following its sudden team size decrease. It’s hardly the only post of this nature, either, as other Reddit posts (1,2) have similar views and upvote counts. Alongside arguments that the mode feels too Conquest-like now, with lengthy runs between fights being more common, the posts all tend to point to a problem BF Studios may not have anticipated when making the change: balancing issues.
This is because multiple Battlefield 6 maps will now feel nightmarish for Defenders. Liberation Peak, for instance, has become painful for those defending on Breakthrough, as they have less teammates to help eliminate the attackers’ pair of tanks at the beginning of the match. Other maps can be just as brutal, as Defenders lack the team size to efficiently cover every flanking route. At the same time, attacking can be harder on maps like Blackwell Fields, as there aren’t enough people to keep multiple zones covered. Additionally, less players means less Supports, which sees players revived much less consistently as well, adding to how unsatisfying Breakthrough can feel after the change. Some players on the Reddit threads above have pointed to Casual Breakthrough as somewhere BF Studios could have tested such a change, as tamer Breakthrough matches would suit the mode’s intent.
