While EA wasn’t willing to comment on the state of the PC version, we were able to dig up some info which should put your mind at ease — scratch that, make it very excited.

Firstly, we learn via Twitter from DICE rendering architect Johann Andersson the engine BF3 is built on — Frostbite 2.0 — is “primarily developed for DirectX 11″; XP and DX9 won’t be supported (though you may be able to hack it). Also the engine will be especially optmized for 64-bit — thankfully a lot of you have chosen the road less travelled. Good news in itself, but since consoles only support DX9, the implication is the PC version will be a “true” PC game.

An interview (PDF) between AMD and Anderrson back in November taught us DICE has been involved with DX11 from a very early stage, which helped them get in all the features and improvements important to the team, like multicore optimization, multithreading support (more variation, detail, improved load times, smoother performance), compute shader support (more dynamic light sources), and lastly, tesselation (more detailed and more realistically rendered objects). It’s a fascinating read for tech heads, so give the full interview a look if you’re interested. Also check out a more in-depth look at the features in our DirectX 11 By the Numbers article. The short version is this: Battlefield 3 should be a huge jump forward that will please those with great hardware, particularly if it’s running on Windows 7 64-bit.

Now, many players are worrying 3 will turn out more like Bad Company 2. While DICE did do a pretty good job in making it feel like a PC title, it’s no classic Battlefield.

Firstly, you must understand Bad Company 2 was never a “true” Battlefield game, so it’s not fair to assume this is the direction DICE will be heading in, at least on PC. Series associate producer Barrie Tingle has said, “Battlefield Bad Company 2 is NOT a sequel to Battlefield 2 or 2142; it is a sequel to Battlefield Bad Company and as such the list of features matches that of the original game and not that of past Battlefield games.” In other words, it was always intended as an offshoot, not a monster, flagship title like previous games have been.

But no matter — the team has already admitted it was Frostbite’s first time on PC and so, limited in ways. According to Battlefield forum mod “crazycanuck”, based on his experiences and “some conversations”, Frostbite 2 is built from the ground up to “be more efficient and take advantage of the PC’s abilities.” He also says the team is “very excited about what FB2 and BF3 together are going to produce”, especially as they’ve been in development for a number of years (four to six, word has it).

Again from the mouth of Johann, we’re told Frostbite 2 is “developed simultaneously for the strengths of each platform (i.e. we use the best API for each platform).” In other words, it’s a multiplatform engine, but a good one that should satisfy all players, no matter the platform, in the same sense BioWare or Capcom have or CD Projekt will be with The Witcher 2.

The other big issue is maps — BC2 had some pretty small ones and as a result, a smaller player cap. Previous series entries included huge, sprawling maps which made for some real in-depth tactics. For this we go back to May, when senior gameplay designer Alan Kertz wrote to a fan inquiring about the lower play count, “For Battlefield it’s bandwidth; we are bandwidth capped on the consoles. For PC, I’d like to get back to big scale 64 player.”

It’s hard to say then what will happen, but they’ve said it is clear with them fans want the classic stuff. Perhaps PC players will get their own maps, or maybe console maps will be based on the PC maps but scaled down considerably — both seem like entirely plausible scenarios. We’ve seen the latter played out alongside further, bigger scale changes in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, a console-centric version of Battlefield 2 which came about four months after the PC version. Sadly though, Kertz’ response to a fan today regarding this in relation to BC2 says, “It was two completely different games; BC2 is not 2 completely different games. Reality says it costs too much.”

That doesn’t mean the PC version won’t be great — DICE are clever people, after all. Take this quote from former DICE CEO Fredrik Lilegren who said in February, “What the PC version is going to be, Battlefield 3, I think it’s going to absolutely blow everyone away, but I can’t tell you what it is, but it will blow people away.”

Then there is of course the issue of mods, from which we’ve seen some truly epic work like the “Desert Combat” 1942 mod (the team went on to help make Battlefield 2 and then create full games of their own like Frontlines: Fuel of War). Then there’s Commanders, the “Comma Rose”, LAN play, spectating, battlerecorder, and so on. Many of these features, seemingly, are being considered for a future BC2 patch, nevermind BF3. We’re not guaranteeing any of these features will be in BF3; we’re saying based on the evidence, it looks good.

Excited?

Battlefield community manager ‘zh1nt0′ blogged an uplifting and slightly cryptic statement on the official Battlefield blogs.

The community manager’s blog entry reads, “As the preparations have been set and the ball is in motion, it’s safe to say we are going to have something great for people this year.”

Check out the full Battlefield blog post here for more information.

The Battlefield statement ties in with DICE’s Battlefield 3 announcement earlier this month. Check out the Battlefield 3 reveal and beta information here.

All we know is that BF3 seems to be a multi-platform release (by virtue of being bundled with Medal of Honor), so it will not only be on PC, but also on PS3 and 360. That, and it’s likely to use the Frostbite 2.0 engine (as good as Bad Company 2 was, it was still technically Frostbite one-point-something). So it’s safe to expect even more destructible terrain, and perhaps better tools for supporting more user-mods on PC. But what else do we actually want in it? In basic terms: a delightful blend of Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 2. Basically, we want the aesthetics and destruction of BC2 with the scope and scale of BF2. At the moment, we’re going to roll with a near-future setting; even though BC2 does a pretty good job with the modern-to-future gear, we’d like those aesthetics to be brought into a deeper and more interesting game in BF3. Anyhow, here are some more of our humble suggestions to DICE.

More players: First off, let’s bring back the idea of 64 or more players in a BF match. BF2 demonstrated that absolute madness and memories come about from jamming tons of people onto a map and watching chaos ensue, and the 24-player limit of BC2 pales in comparison to the best of BF2. MAG has shown that it’s possible to do 256 players in a single session on a console, so BF3 needs to step up its player numbers. I realize it’s unreasonable to ask for 256 players plus fully destructible environments, but surely we can get a decent chunk more than BC2’s 24, and still maintain fidelity in demolition.

More classes: BC2 (and, well, Battlefield 2142) streamlined BF2’s seven classes into just four. Rather than a simplified, four-guys-who-are-kind-of-decent-at-multiple-skills, let’s go back to highly focused and defined classes. Re-separate sniper and spec-ops. Take BC2’s engineer and reverse-engineer him back into an engineer and an anti-tank guy. And reward players who stick to one kit with a bigger set of focused tools and abilities. Have players get a better sense of role and identity, rather than the “I can do this and that” that you feel with BC2. While we’re at it, bring back more factions and equipment — we actually miss playing as the MEC during BC2.

More real estate: BF2 was famous for having varied map sizes based on player-count. So, in BF3, you can have your tight map for a 16-person game, and when the player count reaches 32, the map can grow to reveal more of the island you’re fighting on. And when you hit 64, the entire island becomes playable. In BF2, a map could be measured in square kilometers that took considerable time to hoof across. And that sheer distance adds more gameplay variety than the “fighting down a straight corridor” method of BC2 — you can have a better sense of multiple fronts, or individual squads carrying out flanking tactics to support a big main push, and so forth. One idea we have is that the maps are so damn big that they have crazy diverse regions within. Think of a 64-player match on a map where a city is surrounded by dense jungle, or a snow-covered mountain overlooking a forest. Essentially, a map so big that it feels like two distinct BC2 maps put into one large chunk of real estate.

More vehicles: To complement the massive map size, let’s get back to having something like 30-plus vehicles of all kinds. Why limit the game to light tanks and jeeps? Let’s have APCs and boats and gunships. Let’s have multiple types of heavy tanks. Bring back the glory days of coordinating vehicle rides to cross the expansive maps. Heck, let’s bring back jets. Air power shouldn’t just be helicopters — BF3 could herald the glorious return of F-15s and the A10 while also adding things like the AC130 or a B2. Sure, people will still invariably suck at piloting them, but man alive, the ability to pound the map with 105mm howitzers will make up for lackluster pilots.

More command: With all the craziness going on, it’s time to bring back the Commander. Have a player call the big shots for his team out in the field. Have him survey the map, and perform his BF2 duties of calling in bigger artillery, dropping in supplies, and using radar to guide everyone. But in addition, let’s give him more cool tasks. How about calling in (and guiding) a cruise missile? Or maybe designating squad deployment areas — so that individual soldiers can opt to either spawn on top of their squad like in BC2, or jump into one of the Commander’s designated spot.

More tracking: In light of all the new toys and activities we’re asking for, it’d make sense to up the stat tracking. BC2 does a pretty nice job, but with all the weapons, vehicles, and commander actions, it’s time to adopt a detailed-MMO-level approach to stat tracking. Dogtags, pins, unlocks, kills, streaks, support actions — have it all feed into some sort of “Encyclopedia Battlefieldia.”

More modes: The Bad Company series did a great job of adding more modes on top of the traditional conquest. Rush and Onslaught, adapted for a game of BF2’s scale, would be welcome. But let’s not forget everything about BF2142. In principle, the Titan mode where teams would breach and destroy a mobile base, could still work. Maybe it gets converted into storming roving battleships or floating fortresses. But basically, in case you haven’t gotten the point by now, we’re hoping that DICE just cherry picks the best stuff from Battlefield and Bad Company and blends them into one crazy uber-package with BF3. As a bonus for the more visually minded, here’s a “charticle” version of this story. What would you want to see in Battlefield 3?

This story is from 1UP !! Good read I thought I’d share it.

Dice Ditching DX9 For DX11 And FrostBite 2 For Battlefield 3

First and foremost, Dice has completely built their new Frostbite 2 engine from the ground up. While I was impressed by what Dice accomplished with the original Frostbite, it did have it’s limitations. Frostbite 2 has been built to take full advantage of the extra muscle you can only find on a gaming PC. DX9 will not be supported by the new Frostbite Engine as it has been built primarily around DX11?s architecture, sorry XP users but it’s way past time you upgraded to 7 anyway. Frostbite 2 is also optimized to take full advantage of a 64bit OS and sports features such as multi-core optimization, multi-threading support, compute shader support, and tesselation.

While Dice seems to have taken great care in building Frostbite 2 with a PC platform in mind, the engine is still multi-platform. FB2 for the consoles will be tailored to each consoles specific strengths according to DICE rendering architect Johann Andersson…

“Frostbite 2 is developed simultaneously for the strengths of each platform”

That’s good news for PC gamers that were worried about their experience being somewhat lessened by a multi-platform engine for BF3! Instead of building a single engine that can run on all platforms, Dice has pretty much created multiple versions of FB2, with the console versions of FB2 obviously being scaled back to accommodate the limits of what said console can do.

I leave you with a quote from former DICE CEO Fredrik Lilegren…

“What the PC version is going to be, Battlefield 3, I think it’s going to absolutely blow everyone away, but I can’t tell you what it is, but it will blow people away.”

Lock & load gentleman!

(Source: Kotaku)

Editorial Note: So what does this mean? In all honesty, nothing. DICE will say whatever they need to say to calm the storm that has developed over the PC community. I would not put much trust into this recent statement till we some game specifications on all systems. Until then, all we can do is wait.

Check img below from MOH site:

Could this mean the end of the PC franchise? I mean we all know how well “PC to console” ports go, right? WRONG !!!!!!!!!!! They most definitely cripple the end experience for PC gamers. We all know that the economy is tough and companies are looking to save money. But in all honesty this might just be the biggest mistake in PC gaming history. We all remember what a shocker it was to play Battlefield 1942, and how innovative and creative Battlefield 2 turned out to be. For gods sake when Battlefield 2 came out there were maybe 10 desktops in the world that could run that game on high settings with all the features and effects they introduced.

Should we lie to our-self thinking that they will keep the console version different from PC version? How many game developers are doing this in these tough times? Simple answer, none.

Possible differences between PC vs Console versions will undoubtedly be:

1. Number of players per map.
2. Thats pretty much it.

This makes you wonder now if Gordon Van Dyke really left the company to “be closer with his family”, or because he knew that his beloved franchise was going to become a port. I still hold a glimpse of hope that Battlefield 3 PC version will truly be a worthy predecessor to BF2. For some reason I still believe DICE’s CEO when he said “Battlefield 3 will blow everyone away”. As a hardcore Battlefield gamer I can see many gamers who loved the BF2 series opt for the console version. I mean why spend 800.oo dollars upgrading your gaming rig, when I can just pick up a xBox 360 version for 59.99 ?? Most definitely that will be the case for every media-core Battlefield fan. This scenario will only yield in less PC players, less servers, less fun. This is a true blow to the PC gaming industry, as in the recent years its getting no love from developers.

Please post your input on this situation. I would love to hear your opinion.

This Sunday August 1, be sure to check out a 100% all-new Medal of Honor gameplay trailer directed by Linkin Park’s Joe Hahn. The trailer will feature in-game footage set to the band’s recently-announced single ‘The Catalyst’ at www.medalofhonor.com/linkinpark. More details about the Battlefield 3 beta itself can also be found at www.medalofhonor.com/battlefield3.

Medal of Honor Limited Edition also features special content out-of-the-box including the MP-7, a weapon utilized by real-world Tier 1 Operators in the field.  With its light weight, high rate of fire as well as its ability to penetrate body armor, the MP-7 handles like a pistol yet allows targets to be engaged like a rifle.  The Limited Edition also includes two powerful shotguns with custom slugs. These devastating shotguns and ammunition are ideal for close-range fights.

* The PlayStation 3 version of the Limited Edition also includes the classic, Medal of Honor Frontline™ completely remastered in HD.  **Restrictions and conditions apply to Beta offer.  See http://www.ea.com/beta for details.

Its sad, but the PC gamers are still waiting for the release of Battlefield 1943. What is DICE up to? No one knows. I’m for one hoping that they are so busy working on Battlefield 3 that they forgot about their 1943 PC release

Please enjoy this funny video.

(embedding is disabled)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f05SK6J3V6w

Haven’t had a chance to try it out?

PC industries sent me their Mythbusters videos on twitter and I was instantly hooked.

The creativity and amount of work they have put down in these two videos is great!

The mythbusters videos are a small guide to different cool stuff you can do or try out in BFBC2.

This is so great I decided to post it on the blog.

Enjoy these great new videos

Mythbusters – Episode 1

Mythbusters – Episode 2

From the author:

Is this the official new live-action trailer for Battlefield 3??……well no. I created this film as a tribute to one of my favourite game franchises and it is meant with the greatest adoration and appreciation!

The compositing was done in After Effects, I created the 3D models in Maya and used Photoshop to create the textures and bump maps. 3D assets were rendered with mental ray.

Thanks again to Guy and Mark at Gamespot UK for recently mentioning the film on the Gamespot UK Podcast!

Please enjoy these wonderful photoshops, and join our discussion forum if you would like to submit your own.