Battlefield 6 players have been debating bots since the open beta, and this week lead producer David Sirland laid out the actual rules that decide when those AI soldiers show up. The details landed on X on November 5, 2025, and they cut through a lot of the guesswork about why some matches feel like a bot convention.
How seeding works: seeded bots appear in regular playlists only when a human player kickstarts a lobby and the pre-round sits idle for roughly three minutes. At that point the game will seed the server with bots to reach a playable limit so the round can start. Once humans begin joining that match, bots are removed one-for-one until the lobby is filled with real players.
The lead producer noted that some playlists aim for 24 players per side in modes like Conquest, which means seeded bots are there to stop you from waiting forever in low-pop regions. If you leave a lobby because you see bots, you may end up prolonging the wait for everyone because the server needs players to stick around for regular matchmaking to join in.
There is also a separate class of AI called onboarding bots. These are used specifically to populate matches for new or returning players and remain in place to form a sizable portion of each team, unlike the temporary seeded bots that only bridge the gap until humans arrive.
Sirland says the team can and will experiment with longer wait limits before seed bots kick in, to find the balance between starting matches promptly and keeping lobbies feeling like real multiplayer.
Here is the original post on X:
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 3 minutes)
At that point, the bots fill the server to the necessary limit to start the game— David Sirland (@tiggr_) November 5, 2025
Battlefield players split on bots will keep arguing, but the mechanics Sirland described are straightforward: seeded bots are a matchmaking tool to avoid infinite waits, onboarding bots are a teaching aid, and the developers plan to tweak timing if needed. If you care about match purity, the practical option in low-pop regions is to wait through the seeded games so real players can join the same server. Thoughts on bots in your matches? Drop a comment below and say what you think about seeded bots versus onboarding bots.
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