The Battlefield 6 developers have changed how XP works in Portal mode to address issues caused by rampant XP bot farming. Farming XP by constantly fighting bots is probably one of the most controversial practices of Battlefield 6, and the developers are working hard to curb it.
Released on October 10, Battlefield 6 quickly became a huge hit. Not only did Battlefield 6 sell over 7 million copies in five days, but analysts estimate that the game’s initial sales may have given EA around $350 million in gross revenue. Despite the commercial success and positive reviews, many Battlefield 6 players believe that XP progression is too slow, and their constant use of XP bot farms has caught Battlefield Studios’ attention.
Battlefield Studios has recently made a major change to how XP bot farms work in Battlefield 6. The team has rolled out several backend updates to support healthier matchmaking and changed how bots work in Verified Experiences to improve the overall quality of these maps. To get Full Progression and XP from Verified Experiences, their creators have to unpublish them, disable “Bot Backfill” and then republish. After these changes, Custom Experiences will continue to earn less XP, regardless of whether bots are active.
These changes follow Battlefield 6’s recent nerf to XP bot farming. The recent update quietly removed Mastery XP and challenge completion from any Portal lobby with bots enabled. This drastically reduced how useful XP bot farming was, and the intended effect was to prevent gamers from clogging servers with them. According to the Battlefield 6 team, the abundance of XP bot farms makes it harder for players to discover the “kinds of experiences Portal was created for.”
The crackdown on XP bot farms will not surprise anyone who has been following Battlefield 6 closely. Last week, the developers already addressed XP farms in Battlefield 6, and gamers are now seeing what these changes look like. Hopefully, the game’s XP system will also be tweaked enough so that gamers won’t feel the need to resort to these practices.
Addressing balance and XP bot farms is far from everything that Battlefield Studios is focused on, though. With Battlefield 6’s Season 1 coming up soon, gamers can expect major changes to the popular first-person shooter. Season 1 will be divided into three different stages. The first one will be called Rogue Ops and will arrive on October 28, followed by California Resistance on November 18, and Winter Offensive on December 9.
- As part of this effort, we’ve rolled out several backend updates to support healthier matchmaking and better overall experiences in Portal. This includes resolving unintended systems that affected XP progression and balance across experiences, and for now, removing bots from Verified Experiences to help improve the overall quality of matches.
- Verified Experiences with “Bot Backfill” disabled continue to grant Full Progression and XP.
- Custom Experiences will continue earning reduced progression, regardless of whether bots are active. This keeps creative freedom and allows you to express yourself within Portal while maintaining progression balance.
- To pick up these changes properly and have an experience earn full XP, any qualifying experience would need to be unpublished, have “Bot Backfill” disabled, and then republished. Servers, including persistent ones, may occasionally need to be restarted. These brief interruptions may continue until ongoing improvements are fully implemented.
- Released
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October 10, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, In-App Purchases, Users Interact
- Developer(s)
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Battlefield Studios
