Games

Battlefield 6 unexpectedly removed fan-favorite game modes, such as King of the Hill, Squad Deathmatch, and Rush. This sparked anger in the community because players could no longer access modes that they'd consistently returned to in the history of the franchise. ExplorEverythingOnce, a particularly disgruntled fan, decided they’d had enough and took it up with Steam support to ask for a refund.

In the refund request, they pointed out that several modes shown as available on the Battlefield website were no longer listed on the Community Broadcast page and had been removed without notice. Despite having played Battlefield 6 for over 470 hours since launch day, the support agent agreed that it “wasn’t right” and refunded the game in its entirety, amounting to the $109.24 that they paid on launch day for Battlefield 6 Phantom Edition. ExplorEverythingOnce added a screenshot of their Steam purchase history as proof of the refund. “Battlefield Studios, you don’t get to remove the games I play and still keep my money,” the unhappy customer said triumphantly at the end of their post.

Because these claims rely on hearsay and a screenshot, there is no way to confirm how true they are. It is strange that Steam would grant this refund request, considering that Battlefield Studios made a statement about the recently vaulted game modes. Some game modes are more popular than others, which leads to inactive servers. To combat this, the devs temporarily removed game modes and put them on a weekly rotation. This decision was made to incentivize players to try different modes and increase active players to prevent dead servers.

The refund was a permanent solution to a temporary situation, and it might have just led to something much bigger. Considering that the post got a lot of impressions within a few days, other displeased players might just flood Steam support with similar refund requests — whether to return Battlefield 6 or any other game.