In Defense of Multiplayer Bots

It is simply just not fun to lose over and over again in a video game. Whether that is in the form of an Elden Ring boss whose patterns you just can’t time right or the online opponent who always has the drop on you. The solution no matter the game though is you simply have to improve or “get gud”. And how do you improve on anything? Practice. There’s nothing that can teach you better than experience, and that goes beyond gaming.

However, forget the real world. We’re here to have fun, right? At least that should be the intention when loading up your game. Anyways, let’s say you’re playing the brand new Battlefield 6. You decided to hop on and see what the hype is all about. However, Battlefield is a hardcore experience and if you don’t know what you’re in for you could be in for a rude awakening. However, war is hell and that’s the point of Battlefield’s controlled chaos. Except, what if you don’t have any control? 

Luckily, Battlefield 6 very recently introduced a brand new mode called Causal Breakthrough. Two teams are filled with eight players and sixteen bots, where actions against bots will grant reduced XP but full challenge completion. At this moment it is only available on two maps, but it’s out to provide a more laid back Battlefield experience and it mostly does just that. This is a great way for people to get their toes wet, especially if Battlefield 6 is their first competitive experience or even first Battlefield.

I used to be heavily into all types of PvP games. However, I am very competitive by nature and when I tossed my Xbox’s power brick into the wall losing my Gold to Plat rank up game in Halo 5 I knew I had to lessen the amount of PvP I played. The toxic gamer in me takes over, but nowadays I enjoy my time on single player and only dabble in PvP here and there. At no point do I blame the games though for my skill issues of course, but 10 years ago I would’ve said something different. 

So having the PvP experience while just shooting bots sounds great, so why are so many people up in arms about bots in Battlefield? Hell, in fact bots across all multiplayer games have been on the poor receiving end of the stick. Of course I understand why competitive players want to only play against other players as that drive is where the fun of PvP ultimately lies. As humans we thrive for power and what better high is there for a gamer than the top of the leaderboard?

Whenever I watch a Fortnite or Battlefield stream, repeatedly I hear constant bickering regarding bots. I want to make a stand here and just really give a true, mature journalistic opinion… complaining about bots is just kind of dumb.

Look, again, I understand the drive of only wanting to face real players. The first ever Call of Duty I ever owned was the first Black Ops back in 2010. The only other shooter I had really played up until that point was Halo Custom Edition on PC with my cousin. But we didn’t even really play it seriously by any means as we just drove Warthogs around Blood Gulch while also hiding with snipers and rocket launchers.

Black Ops drops and everybody is head over heels for it and I actually manage to get the game myself as a gift from my dad on my PS3. My friend found out and wanted to play with me. I proceeded to get absolutely destroyed to where my spirit was crushed and I didn’t want to play the game again. I should also mention I was 10 years old so this was my whole life at this point.

However, that’s when I found an interesting mode called Combat Training. As the name implies, it’s a mode dedicated to training new players by providing a self-contained multiplayer experience where everything is within your control. The maps you play on, the score limit, the bot count and their difficulty, the options on offer made it feel like a worthy tutorial rather than a throwaway mode.

Combat Training had every map from the main game and only a handful of modes. However, I was able to genuinely use this mode not only so I could just enjoy the game but so I could actually improve my core mechanics of first person shooting on console. Call of Duty is an arcade-like shooter, it’s not meant to be realistic. It’s always been the biggest casual point for shooters and with how easy it is to grasp that’s why it’s the top selling game every year. Even if sales don’t necessarily dictate quality.

That’s why I adore Combat Training and spent countless hours slaughtering bots. I don’t know if I ever would have ever been able to build the confidence to go online and learn to get one up on other players the way I did the AI. Hell, even now I will happily play against bots just because I don’t really care to be the best anymore. I just want to have fun and enjoy my games.

I understand the downfalls to this though, of course. No matter how good a bot is, nothing is going to emulate playing against other players. Bots aren’t going to abuse headglitches and use optimized loadouts they got off of Tik Tok. If all you want to do is kill the bots and rack up kills then that’s perfectly fine. It won’t make you an expert but at least you can become competent with the way the game feels. Then you can build off of that foundation once you enter the foray.

The problem is people don’t appreciate bots, at least a vast majority don’t, in the way that I do. Whenever I load up a Fortnite stream, I see the streamer constantly complaining that they’re killing bots during regular Battle Royale. Understandably, bots are scattered throughout Fortnite to not only have engaging moment to moment gameplay at all times but just to prevent discouragement from dying without ever being able to fight back. 

Good players are always going to stomp on the bad, and that’s fine that’s how it should be. But there should be a fighting chance for both sides. On the winning side you deserve to be rewarded for your skillset. Hell that’s the point of these games, it’s to be the top dog no matter what it takes. However, those who want to get better should have the opportunity to get better. Getting your teeth kicked in repeatedly, I don’t care, is never fun. Losing is just not fun. And it’s so easy to quit when you’re not good at something. I know this because I damn near quit everything that doesn’t immediately snap for me. 

I understand both sides of the argument. If things are just handed to you constantly, you won’t improve (in or out of video games). Yes, bots are always going to be significantly easier and will more often than not just walk into your bullets. To a high octane PvP player of course they’re going to be upset when they face bots. Competitive players want to compete and there ain’t anything wrong with that.

Yet at the same time, most of these bots are placed in standard public modes. The regular battle royale for Fortnite contains bots as well as certain modes on Battlefield 6 where bots can take up slots for empty players. I can understand being upset that it’s coming across as an infestation of bots, and in a ranked mode yeah bots absolutely serve no place and that deserves attention to be brought to it. But let me remind you in one simple word that I and many others seem to forget often when it comes to video games: fun.

At the end of the day we play games because they are fun. When you loaded up Galactic Conquest in Star Wars Battlefront II did you care all the kills you attained were against bots? Of course you didn’t because you were living out the world of Star Wars literally having a blast. Hell, bots even allow us to experience older games that may not have servers up anymore, not Battlefront II, but you get my point.

We take things as serious as we do because we care about the things we like and that ain’t a crime. To be up in arms though calling for the removal of bots in games, I think it’s just me finally reaching Unc status but I ain’t got that much gas left in the tank to constantly be trying my ass off in every single game I play. I would much rather go against bots in Fortnite than face Navy Seals after one good game of Call of Duty. 

Bots are harmless in a casual multiplayer game is all I’m trying to say. As I said before in a ranked mode that’s inexcusable. But for regular game modes that the vast majority of people play, why try to ruin anyone else’s fun? If you ask me, don’t question it, just take the easy XP and move on. It’s just a video game anyway, in 2 weeks you’ll forget if you even won the match or not.