Operation Flashpoint 2 DLC tomorrow

By Robert Purchese Published 4 November, 2009

Three quid. Remember, remember.

Codemasters will offer PC owners of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising a free batch of DLC tomorrow.

PS3 and Xbox 360 owners, on the other hand, need to wait and also pay. "Shortly" is the release estimate, and 400 MSP (£3.40/€4.80) or £3.19/€3.99 is the cost.

Dubbed Skirmish, the add-on brings four new multiplayer maps and two new Fire Team Engagement missions (solo/co-op). Of them, Lumberyard and White Fang are Infiltration MP maps; Stomping Grounds and Force Dispel are Annihilation outings; and All Round Defence and Uphill Struggle are FTE offerings. There's also the opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of the map in Island Tour mode.

Check out our Skirmish gallery for snaps of the DLC in action.

A patch will coincide with the Skirmish DLC for PC owners. That same Title Update will be offered to Xbox 360 gamers tomorrow, and the PS3 crowd will be sated "shortly" after. The "Public Affairs" section on the Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising website has a full list of fixes, tweaks and tucks.

We reviewed Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising from both a console perspective and PC viewpoint.

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 (48) Latest comment 2 years ago

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

  • metalangel #1 2 years ago

    Hoho! Now you can finally explore the island, as was promised in all the pre-release hype, by giving us more money.

  • superdelphinus #2 2 years ago

    crazy bastards!

  • CUTZ-SIX #3 2 years ago

    Meh allready traded this in for borderlands

    EDIT: thanks for the negative feedback.
    the game is still shit
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 16:29

  • bratmandu #4 2 years ago

    You can forget it, this was perhaps the most dissapointing game in recent memory. I was so looking forward to hardcore military sim. Little did I realise 'hardcore' means 'annoying control system, poor collision detection, crap graphics and design by comittee'.

    Now they're charging for things that should have been in the game from the start??? And some of those things aren't even fixes for the poor netcode?? Get bent codemasters!

  • MiniAmin #5 2 years ago

    And it's been out for only 3 weeks. Remember, remember.

  • KayJay #6 2 years ago

    I was so so so dissapointed with this.

  • superdelphinus #7 2 years ago

    does anyone remember the game EF2000? Ok so it was a flight sim but it had a persistent war mode where you randomly took missions, which may or may not have ended up in any action, but the war still progressed all the same. Are there any tactical shooter games like that? Is that what Arma 2 is like?

  • shogo10 #8 2 years ago

    How sad that they're putting something that should have been fixed from the start into the dlc which they charge you, rather than in the actual patch. The game has been a disaster since it was released, and they've done jack all to fix any of the major problems the game has. Whats worse is that I find it hard to believe that it took them one whole month to release this patch, just sad.

  • NGCes26294BIV #9 2 years ago

    Another case of Microsoft dictating that DLC must be charged for, I'm afraid.

    No, really.

  • frugtkompot #10 2 years ago

    Indeed! Focus on optimizing the game, then perhaps people will give you your money.

    Dissapointed by Codemasters! :/

  • ybfelix #11 2 years ago

    ...the Fifth of November

  • monkeywithnoeyes #12 2 years ago

    yay.. so not only do they not offer the map editor with the console version they also want to charge for dlc too.. for "just £3". Don't Microsoft have a policy that 1-in-3 dlc can be offered for free on the 360? Or does that only apply to EA, rockstar, ect

    @NGCes26294BIV, are microsoft also in control of the charges for sony's dlc too? MS also have a policy where if dlc is offered free on the ps3 its offered free on the 360. Get sony to step up if innocent kindhearted codemasters don't really want our money.
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 16:41

  • SMOM #13 2 years ago

    Shame the game is terrible.

  • NGCes26294BIV #14 2 years ago

    @NGCes26294BIV, are microsoft also in control of the charges for sony's dlc too? MS also have a policy where if dlc is offered free on the ps3 its offered free on the 360. Get sony to step up if innocent kindhearted codemasters don't really want our money.
    --------

    No, there's no such policy. Brutal legend, for example, charge for DLC on the 360 but it's free on PS3. Microsoft woudn't allow Sony to dictate their stance on DLC. I suspect codemasters are charging equally on both consoles to not further agravate their audience.

    Also, Microsoft only allow free DLC from top-tier AAA titles, such as Halo, Gears etc, and even then it's only free for a specific time period. Even Valve were only able to get a small DLC released for free. Codemasters just don't have that leverage.

  • Boomerang #15 2 years ago

    Desperately underwhelming list of fixes. Oh well. They'll keep at it until they find something else to do (milk us for).

  • mcmothercruncher #16 2 years ago

    Another own goal to add to the numerous gaffs by the team at Codemasters since release.

    With all of this, for free, the game still wouldn't match what was promised prior to release. There's no way I'm paying even a small fee, on principle! Codemasters- you are dead to me!!

  • asharkman #17 2 years ago

    Wait a minute.
    Does the PC game get this new skirmish thing for free?
    Oh my god i just read to the end of the page.
    That's it i'm trading in this.
    I can't believe that. I actually can't believe that.
    The game should have never been released in it's state.
    What a joke, they release a game with hardly any of the things in it that they advertised and
    now if you want to fly the attack helo they advertised you have to PAY FOR IT!
    ugh that makes me angry.
    Edited by 2 at 04/11/09 @ 16:59

  • Turrican #18 2 years ago

    Kind of pointless as most people finished the game within a few evenings and have no motivation to go back to it.

    I myself found it entertaining for a while but ultimately as much of a corridor shooter as Half Life or CoD, the checkpoint system and forced tempo of the missions just doesn't allow experimentation or deviation.

    The game will go down as a missed opportunity in my book. As many said at the time, if only ArmA and OF2:DR could have met in the middle of ambition and stability we would have had one hell of a game on our hands.

  • NGCes26294BIV #19 2 years ago

    "Does the PC game get this new skirmish thing for free?
    Oh my god i just read to the end of the page.
    That's it i'm trading in this.
    I can't believe that. I actually can't believe that."
    ------


    You haven't been a console gamer for very long, have you :-)

  • asharkman #20 2 years ago

    I have actually, years.
    I was a PC gamer at the same time just never bothered with DLC before now.
    I'm pretty disgusted that they're charging for stuff that really should be given out for free.
    I mean they had clips of frigg'n helicopters and tanks and you don't get to use them at all.
    God this is really bugging me.

  • monkeywithnoeyes #21 2 years ago

    @NGCes26294BIV, well they used to have that policy (i've not heard anything about BL dlc so cant comment on that), but i know they put that policy into practice with a few games early on.. like rainbow six for example. And i believe midnight club may be the latest to take advantage of it having all its dlc offered for free so far.

    Also, valve have gone on record talking about MS's 1-in-3 policy when it comes to dlc. And its not just the big titles this is optioned to. Frontline offered its first dlc pack free for example..and that was hardly a big selling game.

  • XdarXideX #22 2 years ago

    @shogo

    Actually the patch will be free. It will be an autoupdate that not only fixes the bugs mentioned, but allows the DLC to be accessed in the game. You'll get that whether you buy the DLC or not.

    EDIT: Does anyone know if the new content comes with extra achievements? That's usually one of the reasons they call it "Premium DLC".
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 17:12

  • NGCes26294BIV #23 2 years ago

    "I'm pretty disgusted that they're charging for stuff that really should be given out for free."

    It's a Microsoft issue, I'm afraid. They want to keep developers charging for DLC as it's proven to be a healthy revenue stream. As soon as DLC starts to get released for free it will become the norm, as it has done for PC. Also, I'm sure MS has bandwidth costs to consider.

    Sony allow DLC to be released for free, but few developers are willing to incur the wrath of one platform by giving it away to the other for nothing.

  • asharkman #24 2 years ago

    "It's a Microsoft issue, I'm afraid. They want to keep developers charging for DLC as it's proven to be a healthy revenue stream."
    Fine but i wonder is that the cheapest that they could charge for it?

  • NGCes26294BIV #25 2 years ago

    "Fine but i wonder is that the cheapest that they could charge for it? "

    In short, yes.

  • Petulant_Radish #26 2 years ago

    @NGCes26294BIV

    If it really is Microsoft forcing the hand of Codemasters out in a cupped fashion, then that is still no reason as to why it is being charged for on the PSN now is it? Incurring the wrath of a platform holder is a ridiculous argument as it go’s both ways, what exactly could Microsoft do to Codemasters to make them charge for it? They’re not exactly going to stop them releasing games on their machine now are they, because that would be cutting off the nose to spite the face.

    Didn’t Batman have some free downloadable content for the PS3 but not 360? And Brutal Legend? And I’m sure there are others, I’m just not going to look for them.

  • NGCes26294BIV #27 2 years ago

    "Incurring the wrath of a platform holder is a ridiculous argument as it go’s both ways, what exactly could Microsoft do to Codemasters to make them charge for it?"

    They could refuse to upload the DLC content to Live marketplace.

    And yes, Brutal Legend did, as I mentioned in an earlier post, but then EA have a lot of leverage on the 360, what with their sports franchises and all.

    I honestly don't know about Batman.

  • Rodriguez #28 2 years ago

    HenryVIII (Comment from Fable 3 News Story)
    04/11/09 @ 15:40
    You have to be very narrowminded to be put off by micro-transactions. They are of course optional…

    HenryVIII (Operation Flashpoint 2 Comment)
    04/11/09 @ 16:11
    Island tour should have been in from the start…


    metalangel (Comment from Fable 3 News Story)
    04/11/09 @ 15:50
    Perhaps you'll be able to buy in-game gold with microtransactions? Spend hours pulling pints while that smug tosser says 'That's a perfect pint' after EACH FUCKING ONE, or hurl a fiver at Molyneux and go and buy decent stuff right away.

    metalangel (Operation Falshpoint 2 Comment)
    04/11/09 @ 16:04
    Hoho! Now you can finally explore the island, as was promised in all the pre-release hype, by giving us more money.



    Hypocrisy at its finest.

  • erkster #29 2 years ago

    No chance are they getting my money, this game is a lag fest online and horrible. Single player & Co-op is better, but with superhuman AI and less content than codemasters shorts this is a let down.

    Save your money for next week peeps and get MW2, might not be a 'Mil-Sim' but then neither is this!

  • Petulant_Radish #30 2 years ago

    Actually I meant both free for Batman, two map packs for it, it seems there are two available separately for free on the Marketplace, and I presume on the PSN as well.

  • metalangel #31 2 years ago

    @superdelphinus: The best I've seen is the MFCTI mod for the original Operation Flashpoint (mfcti.sourceforge.net).

    It was part dynamic campaign and part RTS. You basically had the entire island (any of the four from the original game) and you had to build a base and facilities, capture towns to generate income and then use the cash to build an army to take over the enemy's towns and fight their army. The closest commercial game was ancient PC great Battlezone, as this is all controlled from the same in-game perspective as normal Flashpoint. Order a building built there, then turn and order a soldier in your squad to get into a jeep. Set a squad to act on its own, or give them a waypoint on the map to go to.

    The whole thing was unscripted, and you could have an AI control the other side if you didn't want to. The whole island was there for you to conquer any way you saw fit. Tanks? Expensive helicopters to drop troops in? Missions and objectives would come up on their own, if you really needed to capture a crucial town but the enemy had a strong presence, you'd need to work out a battle plan and then have a fight easily equivalent to any of the scripted crap in Dragon Rising. And that's while other parts of your squad are in operation elsewhere, possibly near enough to come and assist if you have trouble! Hell, on one mission my plane was shot down and I had to hide in a forest near the enemy base until another player executed a daring rescue mission in a helicopter! Again, entirely unscripted, worthy of a mission in a 'proper' game.

    The author has been porting it to the original ArmA, don't know about an ArmA2 port yet, but definitely worth checking out if you have Flashpoint lying around and a PC to run it on.

  • NGCes26294BIV #32 2 years ago

    @"Petulant_Radish"

    That may have been something to do with MS trying to make up for the fact that Sony had some exclusive content for Batman.

    Like I said, it's all about leverage.

  • metalangel #33 2 years ago

    Rodriguez, if you've ever read any of my comments you'd know that I'm really opposed to DLC (I see it as content being deliberately cut out so we can be charged extra for it, as is the case here and in Fable 3 with the £1 swords) unless it's a good proper add-on pack like Broken Steel or Gay Tony. That Fable 3 comment was facetious.

  • Rodriguez #34 2 years ago

    @ metalangel

    Was only having a laugh, no offence taken I hope ;)
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 17:45

  • G-Money #35 2 years ago

    Final straw. I'm trading in... Eat a d**k Codies!

  • monkeywithnoeyes #36 2 years ago

    @NGCes26294BIV - "Sony allow DLC to be released for free, but few developers are willing to incur the wrath of one platform by giving it away to the other for nothing." - that is such retarded ps3 fanboy conspiracy i cant decide on if you're serious or not.

    If codemasters did not wish to make money then they would offer the dlc for free... pc gamings not a big enough revenue for them to ask for dlc charge..plus they;ve no hope of policing it so they'd lose out either..its not worth the backlash of attempting to charge for it.

    Codemasters are charging dlc on sonys console because they want to. No amount of you complaining about microsoft effects that.

    Also, dlc with batman was free on the 360 too... why? because of their policy which you were incorrect about before. The joker dlc was a deal between eidos and sony.. and remains exclusive to sony.

  • bratmandu #37 2 years ago

    @ Raajaa

    Your feedback is probably from stating incorrectly, that because people don't 'get' this game, that they aren't good at it - they talk negatively about it.

    Give the people more credit, did it occurr to you that the readers here might actually be decent games players? Every game I get I wade right in on the hardest difficulty. I was looking forward to OPF2DR and felt it was such a letdown.

    Op Flashpoint 2 had so many good ideas wasted or underused, the firefights and cool combat situations are ruined when the collision detection doesn't work right, and you find that even when crosshair, player model AND gun model are pointing out a window, well above the window-sill, bullets magically hit off said window sill. Fair enough it happen's in a few games, but here it's so noticable.

    You have these wonderful lighting effects when the Sun comes up (as missions are in realtime) and then you see a 2 polygon bush with a crap texture on it.

    And changing weapons? I get that it should take a few seconds to change weapon, but it takes a second to even bring up the menu, and then you have to flick through each one, with a nice little delay so when you push up to select a weapon it seems like it doesn't register so you press it again whereupon it registers twice, skipping the weapon you wanted - THEN you get the weapon change animation. Why not use a radial menu like the squad commands do?

    When the good parts work well it's great but we shouldn't have to wade through shit to get to the good bits. In short, I'm asking how the hell you can possibly enjoy a game with such glaring technical and gameplay destroying 'features'??

  • metalangel #38 2 years ago

    @Rodriguez: Given the worryingly high proportion of fanboys and general twats on here, one can never be 100% sure. No problem :)

  • NGCes26294BIV #39 2 years ago

    "that is such retarded ps3 fanboy conspiracy i cant decide on if you're serious or not."

    Pretty impressive considering I don't own a PS3 - I have a 360, a Wii and a DS. In fact, I've never owned a PlayStation console, period. I'm curious as to what makes it a 'fanboy' statement though...

    "Codemasters are charging dlc on sonys console because they want to. No amount of you complaining about microsoft effects that."

    No. They are charging on PS3 so as not to sour their relationship with Microsoft, as they bring in the most game sales. You clearly have a very limited and consumer-focussed view of the industry. I suggest you get involved in it sometime.

    "Also, dlc with batman was free on the 360 too... why? because of their policy which you were incorrect about before."

    So EA decided to charge for Brutal Legend DLC on the 360 and gave it away for free on PS3 'just because', and that it had NOTHING to do with Microsoft insisting on them charging for it? Really? Explain the rational behind that please...?

  • JayPee #40 2 years ago

    I enjoyed this title for the most part, but one has to admit it is not without its fault, many of which have already been cited here. To simply bash it as "terrible" or "truly bollocks" or "garbage" I think is extreme. I have played games I would describe like that, and this certainly isn't one of those.

    For me, the seeming inability to find a stable online game and the somewhat short and tempo-dictated campaign has left me both unfulfilled but at the same time not really wanting to go back and replay the game again. The 'fire team' missions are, for the most part, too short and simple to be properly engaging; sort of like playing a bot match where there is no real investment in the events that are happening around you, or how your actions are influencing them.

    So what I think I would really like to see from codemasters is more proper campaigns of the ilk of the full one supplied on the disc. I see no reason, with some additional scripting and voicework, other sets of missions could not be easily created into small campaigns and released as DLC. Now that I would pay for. At the core of the game is a rock-solid foundation and engine; the open nature of the combat and (mostly) decent enemy behaviour, weapon & vehicle variation and island setting could lead to some great gameplay. It just need wrapping in a bit of story and drama to make you care.

    I hope that ultimately this is where codemasters are headed with the dragon rising DLC (especially on consoles where community creation is not possible), rather than doing what this update & DLC seems to do, which is offer little and probably just features that they couldn't develop onto the disc due to the time pressures likely arising from QCing the core campaign and de-glitching as much as they could before their promised ship date (multiplatform).

    Regarding the prices/platforms issue that most commentary on this article seems to be focussing on, the different prices do seem strange but at the same time understandable. I'm not about to justify the prices but there are additional costs (and counter-parties) involved with releasing updates and DLC for consoles. Like others though, I feel the island tour 'feature' feels like something that I would have been unsurprised to see in the shipped game, and, to a certain extent, feel disappointed with what OPF2 turned out to be as a whole.

    I really couldn't care less about arguing over 21p and don't care much for who is 'responsible' for the fact it costs money on consoles either. Complaining about something you're not going to buy seems a waste of energy. Complaining after you bought it and feel ripped off is a little better! :)

  • JayPee #41 2 years ago

    Also @bratmandu - I did enjoy the game, but at the same time agree with many of the points you make in the above post (I never experienced a problem with the weapon change really though). I'm not sure I have a proper answer as to 'why' I enjoyed it other than, well, when I was playing it I was having fun (I think!) :D

    I did spend a large part of it playing through with a friend though, which may have smoothed out the more obvious chinks I guess.
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 22:59

  • Harmonica #42 2 years ago

    I think the game was solid enough at evoking a modern war scenario, without being particularly memorable like the original Op Flash.

    The main fault for me was the squad AI, which Codies hyped up, but it was utter rubbish.

    On the consoles, the game just needs the editor, and the ability to share missions, and it would be much more of a success.

    Disagree about the multiplayer having problems, because I've played hours of coop and tdm without lag or issue.

  • JensonJet #43 2 years ago

    I'm with the disappointed gamers on this one. Too many issues, whether technical or outright dishonesty on Codemasters part. The biggest of which were the lack of a mission editor, not allow friends to be invited to ranked matches, the difficulty in finding and joining games, and the poor controls. While I understand why people discredit us as fans of 'twitchy shooters', it's undeniable that those types of games have far better controls than Op Flashpoint.

    With the game is set over a large area I actually thought the game would make us feel like we're in a battle zone, instead all the distance served to slow down reaching missions. Ultimately the game was dull. Another massively disappointing game from Codemasters. They've had the last of my money now.

  • metalangel #44 2 years ago

    @JayPee: if the console versions had the mission editor, I'd buy it. If they could at least access all the missions made using the PC version's editor, that would make me far more likely to buy it. As it stands, this is a game with a huge amount of content that you'll never get to use, a huge environment that you'll never get to see, with an arrogant dev who can now knock out any old shit using their console enabled mission editor, charge what they like and the players, desperate for any new content, will snap it up.

  • ODB_Mongoose #45 2 years ago

    Epic how a publisher screws a legendary title.

    Amazing, you have a golden nugget of a title in your hands and you decide to F*CK the community and create a shit game like this.

    It's so unbelievably stupid...

  • bratmandu #46 2 years ago

    @JayPee

    Glad you enjoyed it, even if you can't give a reason why, but despite average to above-average review score, I still don't get how anyone could play this for more than a couple of days and still enjoy it.

    Really, it IS garbage, terrible, and bollocks. They fired it out the door before MW2, and you can even see quite clearly, the parts of the game, in graphics/gameplay and AI, where they simply didn't get time to make it work properly. And it's a shame because some part of it work well enough, and you can see the potential that was there.

  • Harmonica #47 2 years ago

    Not really true, it feels like an Op Flash game should do, which is half the battle won. It does lack the bits aound the edges of the missions that lent the original its charm: down time, RTB in a jeep convoy or helicopter, a team leader shouting orders (even if it was just ONE.... ENGAGE....RIFLEMAN...) or giving a motivational speech. Or the epic battles, which are mostly orchestrated this time.

    There's a distrinct lack of running for miles and miles on foot (although the breathy heart poundy bits are excellent), only to find you're completely surrounded by the enemy on all sides, and leading a one man assault with dwindling odds.

    It's not a badly made game, you can tell that just looking at the menus, or the rather slick intro sequence, or the decent music, or the graphics engine which isn't so bad, or the tactical side of things which does the job rather neatly (even if lacking decent squadmates to get tactical with).
    Edited by 1 at 05/11/09 @ 16:40

  • Gammerz #48 2 years ago

    I really like OFP but feel massively disappointed that the missions are too rushed, too short and have little vehicle usage. OFP had massive potential that hasn't been fulfilled. Bugs need fixing, the number of missions needs increasing and the free-roam option should be unlocked upon completion of the game. All this should be available in a free DLC to make up for the game's shortcomings as a "sorry" from the devs. If they must charge for it then make it a cheap, decent offering, not this half hearted attempt at bug fixing (see official site for list) and DLC. Treat us gamers well and the devs will gain our loyalty and we'll be chomping at the bit for DLCs and sequels.
    Edited by 3 at 06/11/09 @ 01:14