The latest issue of Game Informer magazine – featuring Battlefield 3 on the cover – is about to drop all over the planet, and leaked details are stuffing game forums everywhere ahead of the launch.<\/p>\n
Over at NeoGAF<\/a>, one poster named FLEAbttn has kindly summarised all the game’s pertinent bits and pieces in a bulleted list so I don’t have to (although I did correct the spelling and punctuation errors, because I’m conscientious like that):<\/p>\n • <\/span>Aiming for CY Q4 2011 release.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Concept for BF3 has been in the works for years, waiting on proper tech to seamlessly come together.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Frostbite 2.0 is the culmination of this tech, entirely re-written.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Lighting sounds neat, one “probe” contains more lighting information than an entire BFBC2 level.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Level destruction is going to be “believable” but basically everything is destructible.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Character animations powered by ANT, which EA Sports uses.<\/p>\n • <\/span>AI characters and multiplayer characters have different animation sets.<\/p>\n • <\/span>No more “gliding” animations that look off, animation realism is a focus.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Captured their own war audios (bullets, tanks, helicopters, etc) at different distances to ensure realism.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Better audio cues for certain actions, more easily able to listen for threats.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Plan on better, more immediate post release content.<\/p>\n • <\/span>More unlocks than BFBC2.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Dice trying to find a good balance between customization of your character and not having “pink rabbit hat(s)”.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Four classes.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Will talk about squads “later”.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Looking into a theatre mode but can’t talk about it.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Will have co-op.<\/p>\n • <\/span>There will be a kill-cam but it can be turned off.<\/p>\n • <\/span>BF3’s team is almost twice as big as the team for BFBC2.<\/p>\n • <\/span>They want the pacing of the single player mode to be balanced, with highs and lows. Makes the comparison to a song vs a guitar solo.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Part of the single player mode takes place in Sulaymaniyah – Iraqi Kurdistan.<\/p>\n • <\/span>“F***” will be used often, so M rated for sure.<\/p>\n • <\/span>There will be an earthquake in a level. The destruction sounds very impressive. 7 story building collapses, looks very well done.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Significant narrative that goes with the SP mode.<\/p>\n • <\/span>More than one setting, you’re not in the Middle East for the whole game.<\/p>\n • <\/span>PC version is lead version.<\/p>\n • <\/span>Why 64 players for PC only? No complaints from the console crowd. [Unconfirmed reports have the console servers supporting 24 players; dedicated servers will be supported, presumably for all platforms.]<\/p>\n • <\/span>No mod tools at release. Maybe none down the line either. Frostbite 2.0 is complex and mods tools would have to be dumbed down, so does Dice really want to put their time to that or would it be better spent elsewhere?<\/p>\n • <\/span>Original story, not based on Bad Company at all.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, EA’s senior gameplay designer Alan Kertz has revealed the company’s top secret strategy for taking over the FPS genre – basically, by making a better game than Call of Duty. <\/p>\n “You don’t kill COD by trying to be COD. You kill COD by making a better shooter,” he posted on Twitter.<\/a> “BF3 will be deeper than BF2. That said we’ve paid a lot of attention to keeping depth while pacing the learning curve. BF3 is the sequel to BF2. It’s not BC3. No, grappling hook and zipline are not in the plan.”<\/p>\n