And EA’s Star Wars Battlefront reboots used bots alongside players to enhance particular modes.
MAG, a PS3 game that supported 256-player battles way back in 2010, actually inspired a petition to add bots to the game. I wish EA had competent bots in 2014 when it released the original Titanfall, a 6v6 game that died far too soon because of all the ways it divided its playerbase (across Xbox and PC, across game modes, and with iffy matchmaking), and it wasn’t long before my buddies and I couldn’t find a decent match on PC at all. It’s risky to build a game around 128 simultaneous players (64 players on PS4 and Xbox One), when you never know how long your multiplayer game might be able to keep users around. It’s sure to be a polarizing decision, but I think it might be a smart one, considering the alternatives.
In defense of bots (assuming the bots are any good)
