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).