Battlefield 1943 delayed on PC

By Robert Purchese Published 21 August, 2009

"It was absolutely needed," says DICE.

DICE has pushed the PC release of Battlefield 1943 to early next year, after previously promising a September launch.

"We haven't released a Frostbite-built game on PC, so going into this project we lacked a starting foundation we had on Console," producer Gordon Van Dyke told G4TV.

"There are also many different and unique challenges to the PC that lead to us pushing the release even further to Q1 2010.

"This was a hard pill to swallow," he added, "but it was absolutely needed to ensure the features and functionality that PC Players have come to expect from Battlefield on PC are not missing."

Van Dyke highlighted these as DirectX 9/10 support, a higher player count (32), wider peripheral support, voice support and ranked server provider hosting.

"So it was and still is the absolutely right decision, for quality sake, to not release until it is ready," he said.

Battlefield 1943 launched for PS3 and Xbox 360 in July. Luckily, the PC version should be well worth the wait, as our BF1943 review suggests.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • viper_h #1 3 years ago

    D'oh.

  • roz123 #2 3 years ago

    I think im just going to wait for a proper battlefield game instead of this cut down version.

  • cianchristopher #3 3 years ago

    DICE don't give a shit about the PC anymore. That's what happens to a developer when they get successful on consoles (see Epic Games).

    Only Valve and Infinity Ward seem to be able to straddle the line successfully these days. Unless anyone else can point out someone I'm forgetting?

  • bratmandu #4 3 years ago

    I still don't get why console versions can't have as many players as the PC version.

    The technology on which the originial 1942 was made for and played on, supported more players than 1943 on XBox.

    How come they can't just get 64 or even just 32 players in the XBox/PS3 versions? If it's a hardware issue, surely the 360/PS3 hardware is superior to 2002 pc hardware, which ran 64 players no problem.

    If it's a server issue, surely Mircosoft/Sony/Dice have the best around, and general bandwidth is less of an issue these days as it was in 2002?
    Edited by 1 at 21/08/09 @ 16:49

  • Oblyvious #5 3 years ago

    DICE just needs to stop making 1943 on the PC. They need to put it down and start working on "BF3". God knows how long that will take to make.

  • LeeroyJenkins #6 3 years ago

    Get it on 360 or PS3, it's ace, and see what you're all missing. It's really bloody good.

  • Hunam #7 3 years ago

    Just turn it into a full game on the pc, with 8 or so more maps.


    DOOOO IIIIITTTT

  • Hunam #8 3 years ago

    "DICE just needs to stop making 1943 on the PC. They need to put it down and start working on "BF3". God knows how long that will take to make."

    To be fair, they will use the Frostbite engine to make BF3, so if they do fuck it up first go, they wont screw that game up with it.

  • john_silence #9 3 years ago

    We've been playing just about the same game for 10+ years, so we have a pretty good idea what we're missing, thank you :)
    As to the reason for the delay: yeah, yeah. cianchristopher is closer to the real reason, I feel. Although there are other developers who do PC gaming well on top of console.
    Edited by 1 at 21/08/09 @ 17:19

  • HoriZon #10 3 years ago

    6 months or more later for the PC then not good :/

    Will stick with the 360 one, screw you Dice and your promises!!!!

  • persus-9 #11 3 years ago

    Better late than rubbish, that's what I say. I don't think it's justified to say that DICE are giving PC a raw deal. Sure it sucks that they built this for console first if you look at Mirror's Edge the PC version may have been a little late but it was also the best version and DICE showed their commitment to the PC by adding in PC only goodies like PhysX support.

  • Derblington #12 3 years ago

    Will stick with the 360 one, screw you Dice and your promises!!!!

    Yeah, screw them and their promises! And screw Van Dyke just because!
    Edited by 1 at 21/08/09 @ 19:13

  • Skurmedel #13 3 years ago

    @john_silence: I agree... they are pretty much all the same. Well, the feel in the Frostbite games are different, but it's still pretty similar.

    I would like to see a BF: Vietnam 2. A very underestimated game :(... I loved it, alot. And a new version of Motörhead.
    Edited by 1 at 21/08/09 @ 19:46

  • IronCladChicken #14 3 years ago

    I guess there is still Battlefield Heroes for the PC?

  • matrim83 #15 3 years ago

    Next year? Might as well not bother then.

  • ChaK #16 3 years ago

    my bet :

    BF:BC 2 on PC delayed to september '10. Reason : BF 1943 released early in the year, and they can't release two game at the same time.



    And i'd be the first to cry, shout, insult, flame & all at EA

  • Totoriko #17 3 years ago

    Well I was all set to buy this in September. Looks like I won't bother with this game at all then.

  • bioreit #18 3 years ago

    Well, I hope they use this extra time to fix the game, because right now it's horribly, horribly broken on 360:

    > We set up a party, join a game with friends and spawn in as a squad. All good. Can't set the squad to 'Private', but there's four of us, so it's not too bad. Then the round ends and the game decides to split us up into different squads or even different teams, with randoms in our squads. Often, at least one of us needs to quit out and wait for an invite to get us all across onto the right team, assuming of course the slot hasn't filled up in the meantime. And we still can't set the squad to 'Private', so sometimes we almost get there (say 3 out of 4 party members are in the same squad) then a random joins and won't leave.

    >Don't know if it's glitching, exploiting or hacking, but there's a whole list of dodgy goings-on we keep seeing more and more of - Garand firing as fast as an SMG, with instant reload; enemies not showing up with red triangles regardless of how many of your team look and shoot at them as they shoot; enemy vehicles showing up as empty or friendly then changing to red as soon as you're close enough; instant-reloading shells in tanks and bombs in planes; folk being just plain bullet proof; on Air Superiority, people are surviving outside their planes; and so much more.

    And in the game, it says if you're having issues, go onto the UK forums on the 1943 website. So you go there and report the issues. The forum mods lock the thread, then delete it, saying "this isn't the place for this - go to EA". So you go to EA Support forums, where they say, "This isn't the place for this - go to DICE's site". So you go to DICE and start a thread on their forums, where their mods then lock it and delete it and say "This isn't the place for this - go to the Battlefiel 1943 site and use their forums".

    AAAARGH!

    Eventually managed to speak to a DICE person who professed ignorance about this whole runaround and suggested I should phone EA's premium support numberto get an answer....

    Yeah, right.

    How about I just get a refund instead.

  • Fitzmogwai #19 3 years ago

    Screw that, dude! Screw that right in the ear.

    Actually, never mind, because BF2's now working on Win7 64 after EvenBalance got heavily leaned on by EA to sort Punkbuster's shit out, and the 1.50 patch is due out soon enough.

    That should keep me going until BF3 comes out. BF1943 sounds like very meagre rations for PC gamers raised on more meaty fare.

  • zakrocz #20 3 years ago

    PC gamers, you're so elite, lol. BF1943 on 360 is just as good, if not better than the original 1942 PC version which I played for an unhealthy amount of time. So PC gamers, don't assume you know what other PC gamers will or will not like.

    As for the 24 player cap, as far as I know, this is down to Microsoft, but as the maps have been shrunken and redesigned it doesn't hurt the game.