Thursday 11 June 2009

Guns loaded? Better be because BF3 is confirmed...

Yes you read right. Finally they have decided to announce the inevitable sequel and next in the series for the multiplayer PC gaming title. It would seem that EA Chief Operating Officer, John Pleasants told everyone the following at the William Blair Growth Stock Conference:

"I've had the luxury of looking at Battlefield 3 over at Dice in Sweden and was highly impressed by the way the team is working on that product," he said. "Of course, that's not [coming out] in the fiscal year, but that is a product that is looking very good."

Excellent stuff now we just need more details and a release date. Considering the so called 'leaked documents' from two years back I think we could safely say things will have changed since those were revealed in the design plans. That said I do believe the release date would be from Q3 2010 to Q1 2011 although they will probably try and hit the Christmas rush much like most games companies. I think we can also safely say the game will be set in the present day or a couple of years before or after much like Battlefield 2.

We shall just have to wait for some more details though before we speculate much more!

Need for Criterion:

At the same conference as mentioned above John Pleasants also mentioned that Criterion, the developer behind the highly successful Burnout series, have taken over the Need for Speed series from Slightly Mad Studios.

I do wonder if this is a good thing judging by how unrealistic the Burnout games are and I hope that they can turn Need for Speed into a better series with a more realistic touch to the games. I just hope they keep their Burnout series out of Need for Speed for having two of the same would just be too much. Let's hope they can push the series forward though to new heights considering the past few years lows.

Not much more news today. What with E3 having just finished it would seem not much gaming news is out there at the minute. Must say though E3 was a bit of a disappointment for me. Not a lot of PC games getting announced there apart from the already controversial Left 4 Dead 2 and most of the other news from E3 was on the consoles. That said Project Natal has huge potential and not just in gaming terms. That hardware could in years to come become the focal point of our living rooms.

AJ

With thanks to Computer and Video Games (CVG).

5 comments:

M_the_C said...

Battlefield 3 was practically inevitable, but it's good that it has been confirmed.

I think you're right that it will almost certainly be a present day shooter, especially considering 1943 and Heroes have the World War setting. I just hope they try to come up with a more imaginative conflict, back when BF2 was released the Middle East vs. US was still reasonably fresh, unlike today where it's just become boring. I'm thinking Mexico vs. Swine Flu? ;)

So many games have had sequels over the years, and BF2 is one that actually needs one. It was a massive step-up from 1942 (also excellent) what with the chain of command, more important classes and medals (which I've never heard complained about?). Yet it still had it's flaws which BF3 will hopefully fix. Let's just hope they come up with a fix for widescreen users.

AJB123644 said...

Yeah we all saw it coming just would have been nice to have known about it sooner haha.

Yeah they need something a bit different again. 2142 was a step forward but I think it was not as succesful due to the unrealistic setting which wasnt too good. I do have faith in Dice to some up with something fresh though. Perhaps something on Eurepeon soil would be welcome...

Haha loving your idea hahaha!

Did you ever play 2142?

M_the_C said...

Sadly not, I got caught up in the advertisement scandal and never got around to trying it at a later date.

I think you're right that it was the unrealistic setting that prevented 2142 from taking off, despite all the things I read about how they carefully chose the equipment so as to not alienate the players, however I think it was inevitable.

Europe would be an interesting setting, the main difficulty will be not upsetting any of the nations. Terrorists might sound like the answer but then you have one side as being evil, hence less played (or possibly over). It probably needs to be two groups where neither side is wrong (invading, building nuclear weapons etc.), but it also needs to have enough character to get people motivated without any lies. If they can come up with a solution to that it would be brilliant.

Anonymous said...

I was looking forward to 1943, but since they delayed it for PC I ended up getting Red Orchestra when it was the Steam weekend deal. I'm not sure I would want two such games so I guess EA have lost me on 1943. Shame since I have never played any of them.

Maybe I'll have got board of RO when 43 comes out...

As for BF3, one of the things that I was looking forward to with 43 was the low price, after Left 4 Dead I don't want to pay full price for a predominantly on-line game again. They just don't last long these days.

AJB123644 said...

Yeah true Jon but that said BF2 still has a large community, in fact I do believe 2142 still has a fairly large one. If BF3 could improve on BF2 with a new setting then it would take off and last a good few years at least.

I do see your point though.

BF1943 will be an interesting one. They have new classes made up of the old ones and the new engine will be interesting to see how it plays into the game/action too.