Battlefield 6 XP's controversial changes have been reversed, and Battlefield Studios says they were "unintentional".

Season 5 of Battlefield 6 launched on schedule this week, and while most of the new additions — new maps, weapons and vehicles, and gameplay changes — were well received, the season started off on a low note due to accusations of using artificial intelligence and a big hit to XP. Read more

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After launch, Season 5 players noticed that they weren't earning as much XP as before. To make things even more confusing, Battlefield Studios didn't announce any changes to the XP earning rate before the patch was released. The developer has now said that the change was "unintentional" and has returned the XP earning rate to its previous values.

The official Battlefield Comms X account says: “After the launch of Chapter 5, backend configuration changes resulted in an unwanted issue that affected XP earning rates in modes and hardware progression (such as weapons). "These backend changes have now been reverted, and our team is actively monitoring telemetry to ensure earnings rates return to desired levels across all experiences. We appreciate your patience and reports while we continue to track this issue."

According to some tests, players could only earn a maximum of 300 XP per minute, which was much lower than the pre-patch rate. In the two days since Battlefield Studios responded, many assumed that the amount of XP it could earn had been quietly removed, as the cuts coincided with the release of the Battlefield 6 Ultimate Shortcut Kit, which was available for purchase alongside the launch of Season 5.

The Ultimate Shortcut Kit is a $30/£25 purchase that fully upgrades all classes (including tools and training tracks) as well as 28 weapons and eight vehicles. With one click, you can unlock all attachments and upgrades related to weapons and vehicles, not to mention skins and other gate-level customization options. The Battlefield series has had similar shortcut packs in the past, but this latest version's proximity to unwanted XP changes has players assuming the worst.

It also didn't help that the season opened with a major returning exploit, with some content raising suspicions about being created with artificial intelligence, such as the Audacious Breach character skin. The arm patch of this skin shows "Secuty" instead of "Security".

Battlefield 6 has had issues with XP earning rates before - especially weapon XP. BF Studios spent months tweaking the way XP and points are earned in the game, culminating in another boost at the start of Season 4.

But the game still encounters unwanted errors in this field from time to time. Back in June, BF Studios told players that it would change XP boosters to count down in-game, rather than in real-time. Players celebrated, just for a change - and something similar happened again a few weeks later, rival Call of Duty series announced that two XP tokens in Modern Warfare 4 and Warzone would only count down in matches, much to the delight of players.