September 5 2011
The Battlefield series has become legendary among multiplayer online shooters for its accessible mix of infantry and vehicular combat. It has seen some odd twists in recent years, including the comical Battlefield Heroes and the graphically modest Battlefield Play4Free. Battlefield 3 uses the Frostbite 2 engine to showcase DICE's latest graphics and physics technology. The game is scheduled for release on October 25, 2011 and is the eleventh installment in the Battlefield franchise.
System Requirements
There has been a lot of speculation about the system requirements for BF3. All that has been said officially so far is that you will need Windows Vista or Win 7 (DX10 or better), meaning Win XP is not an option. Aside from that, the requirements are expected to be similar to those of BF: Bad Company 2, which used an earlier version of the Frostbite graphics engine. It looks like you will need to create an account on EA's Origin store to play the game.
Setting
Battlefield 3 uses a modern warfare setting much like Bad Company 2. In the campaign you play as a member of the US Marine Corps fighting against the "People's Liberation and Resistance" or PLR, near the border of Iraq and Iran. Multiplayer maps will be set in places such as Paris, Tehran, Sarajevo, Sulaymaniyah, New York, Wake Island and Oman.
Destructive environments are a growing part of DICE's latest titles, and BF3 is promising even more of this type of physics than Bad Company 2 has. Plan on some intense action blowing up buildings and obliterating the scenery.
Character animation in BF3 is a cut above most shooters, as it uses a technology called ANT borrowed from recent EA sports titles. This makes the game's animation more realistic and fluid, with effects like leaning as you run around a corner.
Gameplay
The game has 4 classes: Assault, Support, Engineer and Recon. The prone position, absent from Bad Company, has returned, and the game will support up to 64 players on the PC in Conquest mode. As is the custom with this series, there is a large contingent of player-driven vehicles in BF3, including transports, tanks, helicopters, and jets. The game has about 80 unlocks for vehicles, and unlike previous BF games, a vehicle can be disabled, reducing its functionality until it is repaired.
Some machine guns In Battlefield 3 have a bipod that can be deployed to increase accuracy and reduce recoil. Those under fire from a LMG will notice a new supression game mechanic which blurs their vision and reduces accuracy.
The commander position introduced in Battlefield 2 is not making a return in BF3, although there will be a squad system. Battlefield 3 has the most extensive unlock tree of any game in the series.
Multiplayer match types revealed so far include Conquest, Rush, and Team Deathmatch. The game will also have a single-player campaign, and for the first time in the franchise, a themed co-op campaign. Co-op follows a series of events that are different from single-player, and include random elements for replayability. High scores will be documented on Battlelog so you can compete with your friends for top gun.
Battlelog
Rather than an in-game server browser, the PC version will have Battlelog, a web-based service offering gameplay statistics, server browsing, friend lists, and so on. This will make it possible for players to access Battlelog from a wide variety of connected devices.
Servers and Modding
Battlefield 3 will have dedicated servers, but, like Bad Company 2, they will only be available through approved server providers. This is a departure from BF2, for which the server software was made public. There will be no modding tools released with BF3, although DICE is considering making them available at a later date. Modding is likely to be very limited, at least in part because it would be extremely complex with the Frostbite 2 engine and destructive environments.
