In the Battlefield 3 campaign, an earthquake rocked Tehran, dropping a building on top of you and transforming the city into rubble- and fissure-filled chaos. The Iranian capital is hit again in the just announced fourth Battlefield 3 map pack, er, “expansion” as EA likes to call them, Aftermath.

Urban warfare is the name of the game in Aftermath, only post-earthquake Tehran will provide some unique city battlegrounds thanks to the environmental devastation. DICE says Aftermath will come packing four new maps and a new game mode. The rundown:

With operational capacity severely compromised the opposing forces must adapt and engage in vertical and horizontal urban combat amongst the dust and rubble with cracks and fissures in the terrain providing unexpected cover and paths to objectives. Additional support comes in the form of heavily modified troop transports and civilian vehicles specially adapted to deliver deadly force to the enemy.

No release date yet, but Battlefield 3: Aftermath is set for launch after Armored Kill in September and is expected to arrive before the end of the year.

Following the confirmation of Battlefield 4, DICE has released a statement regarding its commitment to Battlefield 3.

The developer pointed towards expansion packs Armored Kill, End Game and Aftermath as examples of how the shooter is still due to offer plenty of more gameplay hours to players.

The team at DICE is hard at work on the next entry in the Battlefield series, and to ensure access to the exclusive Battlefield 4 beta, shooter fans can pre-order Medal of Honor Warfighter today. While there is no further Battlefield 4 news at this point – remember, if you don’t see it published here, it’s just rumor and speculation – we did want to take this opportunity to share a few thoughts on the state of the Battlefield franchise.

We are extremely proud of Battlefield 3, and with millions of fans out there, we’re happy you’re enjoying it too. When we launched the game, we introduced unparalleled levels of in-game destruction, all-out vehicle warfare and redefined online gameplay. Even with billions of bullets fired and millions of games played, we know the Battlefield 3 story is still just the beginning. As ever, we are humbled by the community’s response to the game, and couldn’t be happier with the feedback we have received to Battlefield 3 Premium. With the Back to Karkand and Close Quarters expansion packs already out, Armored Kill around the corner, and End Game and Aftermath still on the horizon, we’re looking forward to many more hours of gameplay with you, and can’t wait to see the stories you will tell through Battlelog and player created videos.

But we’re not ready to talk about Battlefield 4 yet – in the meantime, we hope you will continue to enjoy Battlefield 3 and all the Battlefield 3 Premium content still to come. We invite you to check out Danger Close Studio’s Medal of Honor Warfighter, which is also powered by the Frostbite 2 engine and the free social network, Battlelog. Don’t forget that pre-ordering Medal of Honor Warfighter Limited Edition (at no extra cost) guarantees access to the exclusive Battlefield 4 Beta.

Battlefield 3 has been a breakout financial success for publisher Electronic Arts, with the game shipping (which is when the publisher sells copies to retailers) over 15 million units.

In the last several weeks there’s been a slight shift in attention away from the upcoming Medal of Honor: Warfighter and to what will come to players who pre-order the game: next year’s Battlefield 4. The pre-order incentive offers beta access for BF4, quite a while before it comes out and during a period where DLC and updates are still on the way for Battlefield 3.

So why are we talking about Battlefield 4 when Battlefield 3 has only just reached a state that the game arguably should have been at launch and when its DLC plans are only just beginning to roll out? It’s because Medal of Honor: Warfighter might be in trouble.

The 2010 reboot of Medal of Honor was an average game that failed to deliver memorable characters or a multiplayer experience worth playing over the competition. The following year, Battlefield 3 released (too quickly) and made up for the multiplayer, but still suffered on the campaign and co-op fronts. Players play Battlefield and the new Medal of Honor for the multiplayer experience. That’s where the DLC is focused and that’s where the replayability lays.

So, when Medal of Honor 2 was announced (oddly subtitled “Warfighter”), we wondered ‘why.’ Why is EA releasing a shooter so soon after Battlefield 3 when that game launched with a severe need for updates and additional content – of which the game only recently began to receive? Is Warfighter going to compete against Battlefield 3 (and its upcoming DLC) using the same game engine? After the lack of positive buzz following Medal of Honor, its followup is starting on the wrong foot for two reasons, and it’s not helping that the forecast for its sales was just reduced significantly as a result.

After Medal of Honor: Warfighter sales estimates from Cowen analyst Doug Creutz were reduced from 2.3 million units on PS3/Xbox 360 to 1.4 million this morning, Electronic Arts’ stock prices fell slightly. Why the negative outlook? According to Creutz:

“This is based on a very soft performance since E3 in Amazon’s top-selling game rankings compared to other recent titles. We think the most likely culprit for apparent gamer disinterest is the poor quality of the last ‘Medal of Honor’ game in 2010.”

EA’s overly obvious attempt at replicating the development and release model Activision employs with Call of Duty may not work out to their benefit this fall as Medal of Honor: Warfighter will cannibalize the active playerbase from a game they promise to continue supporting up to and beyond Battlefield 4 next year. Would it have made more sense to have Danger Close Games work on additional campaign and/or multiplayer content for Battlefield 3? If you are BF3 player, will you drop that in favor of MOH: Warfighter? Unfortunately, the lower stock prices resulting from this statement are enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy by potentially generating more disinterest.

As a Battlefield 3 PC player myself, the Medal of Honor: Warfighter multiplayer looks pretty but it’s not a step above from Battlefield 3 which offers larger maps with more players and loads of vehicles. With the Close Quarters DLC coming out last month, it also has infantry-focused Frostbite 2-powered modern combat as well. So, to recap, same game engine, both modern combat, both at the same time. Here are the five things we want from Medal of Honor: Warfighter that could help its appeal.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter releases October 23, 2012 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

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Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes.

Source: Cowen (via Forbes)

The details of the forthcoming Battlefield 3 downloadable content (DLC) Aftermath has been announced, including four maps based in Tehran, Iran.

As its title suggests, the maps are set in the wake of an earthquake that has torn the city apart, leaving its two occupying military forces to fight for control and survival among the ruins.

Gamers will, therefore, be able to use the ravaged landscape to their advantage as they fight through the dust and rubble, as well as having to make use of heavily modified military and civilian vehicles to try to gain the upper hand over their foe.

“With operational capacity severely compromised the opposing forces must adapt and engage in vertical and horizontal urban combat amongst the dust and rubble with cracks and fissures in the terrain providing unexpected cover and paths to objectives,” developers DICE explain on the Battlefield website.

“Additional support comes in the form of heavily modified troop transports and civilian vehicles specially adapted to deliver deadly force to the enemy.”

There will also be a new game mode added in Aftermath, although exactly what it entails has yet to be announced by DICE. On top of this new content, there will be the usual new assignments, achievements and dog tags added to the title when it comes out at the end of the year.

Before it hits shop shelves, Battlefield 3 gamers can look forward to the Armoured Kill DLC in September, which will add the largest Battlefield map ever, snowy settings and AC-130 gunships.

The map, entitled Bandar Desert, will have distances of 1.9km between deployment zones, 2.4km between jet spawn points and it will also be 1.9km in breadth at its widest point.

“Playing the first versions of Bandar Desert in our daily play tests was almost like re-discovering the classic Battlefield. Standing in the middle of that desert, looking around at the vast expanse with tanks approaching in the far distance and jets flying overhead was a Battlefield moment on its own,” said DICE designer Joran Holberg.

Battlefield Premium and the multiple DLC packs it adds to Battlefield 3 are still fresh in the minds of players, so when Electronic Arts attempted to boost the appeal of Medal of Honor: Warfighter earlier this month by confirming Battlefield 4 via Warfighter pre-order incentives, there was understandably some concern for BF3′s long-term future.

According to DICE, Electronic Arts and their official Battlefield blog, fans need not fret. They promise to continue supporting Battlefield 3 all throughout this year and next, and beyond the release of its successor.

In an update last week on the official BF blog, EA clarified some information regarding Battlefield 4 and the next piece of Battlefield 3 DLC coming in September (Armored Kill). They revealed the Armored Kill gameplay trailer and said the following about the Battlefield 4 beta:

• The Beta will be in Fall of 2013.
• We are committed to providing an excellent Battlefield 3 experience well into the future , past the releases of Aftermath, End Game, and Battlefield 4. DICE is continuing its work on Battlefield 3 alongside Battlefield 4.
• Most importantly, official details regarding Battlefield 4 will always be made available on Battlefield.com and here on the Battlefield Blog. We expect that the level of interest in Battlefield 4 will lead to a lot of speculation and rumor – don’t fall for it!

What does “providing an excellent Battlefield 3 experience” post-Battlefield 4 mean? Will be additional DLC? Unlikely. Does it mean there will be more updates? Potentially. Or does it mean they’ll just keep servers active for a while? That’s probably it.

What they could (read: should) do is open Battlefield 3 up to mod support around the time Battlefield 4 releases. By then all of the Battlefield 3 DLC (including End Game and Aftermath) will have released and sales for BF3 will have dried up. As pointed out in this weekend’s Game Ranter Banter, previous games in the series included mod support and it helped Battlefield 1942 immensely. Even now, the user-made DayZ mod has boosted sales for the three-year-old ARMA 2 greatly, and the community can do great things with the Frostbite 2 engine if they could make their own maps, weapons and vehicles for BF3.

DICE’s Magnus Troedsson went on record explaining his desire for more innovation in shooters and allowing for mod support would be a step in that direction. Just think of the viral marketing potential of in-game videos from mods. He did say last year that the studio was considering it as a post-launch possibility, reiterating that they want to do it right if they go down that path. Do it.

Battlefield 3 is currently available on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Medal of Honor: Warfighter releases October 23, 2012. Battlefield 4 releases fall 2013.

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Follow me on Twitter @rob_keyes.

Source: EA

• News
  PC
  Xbox 360
  PlayStation 3
  Battlefield 3

By
Wesley Yin-Poole

Published

27 July, 2012

4 urban maps! Damaged terrain! New game modes!

DICE has revealed the first details of Battlefield 3 Aftermath, the fourth DLC for the first-person shooter.

The add-on includes four urban maps in which players fight through damaged terrain, new game modes, achievements, dog tags and assignments.

Aftermath is set in the districts, streets and surrounding villages of a post-earthquake Tehran. DICE said it will feature vertical and horizontal urban combat, with cracks and fissures in the terrain providing cover and paths to objectives. Expect heavily modified troop transports and civilian vehicles adapted for combat.

Aftermath concept art is below. It’s due out in December 2012, and, as with other BF3 add-ons, is included with a Battlefield Premium purchase.

Battlefield 3: Aftermath concept art.

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