Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Earlier this week, a YouTube video sparked reports that Battlefield Bad Company 3 would launch in 2018.

Earlier this month Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 received backwards compatibility on Xbox One. Now they're both available on EA Access, the £3.99 a month service exclusive to Xbox One that grants players unlimited access to various EA titles.

Seven new games were added to the increasingly vast Xbox One backwards compatibility library.

Battlefield, a series famed for its multiplayer battles and not its ropey stories, will be turned into a television show. Anonymous Content, the company responsible for hit TV series True Detective, will be in charge, collaborating with Paramount and EA to make it happen.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Darksiders 2 will be free for Xbox Live Gold members next month on Xbox 360, Microsoft has announced.

Battlefield fans have long called for another Bad Company game. In fact, before this year's Battlefield game was announced, some had hoped it would turn out to be Bad Company 3, not Battlefield Hardline.

Just in case you thought a team at DICE was secretly working on a new Battlefield: Bad Company game - it's not.

There is a Battlefield: Bad Company TV show in the works, according to a new report.

Battlefield 3 executive producer Patrick Bach is so ashamed of his work on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 that he refuses to even the boot the game up.

PC Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will receive patch CR11 very early tomorrow morning (Wednesday, 21st September), DICE has revealed.

The file is 2.6GB and rectifies some stability and performance issues. Notably, it adds the ability to take a screenshot as well as removes the SecuROM DRM "wrapper" from non-Steam versions of the game.

The enormous size of the file owes to it containing all previous patches.

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The long-awaited PC versions of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Onslaught and Battlefield 1943 have been cancelled, developer DICE has announced.

Simply, they took too many resources away from the golden egg: Battlefield 3.

"There comes a time when we as a studio have to choose where to best put our efforts," wrote DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson.

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Five games Electronic Arts launched last year sold over five million copies.

EA has revealed its out-there strategy to take the FPS crown away from Activision and its Call of Duty series: make a superior game.

DICE has another Battlefield: Vietnam map for Bad Company 2 - but this time you'll have to earn it. You and the entire Bad Company 2 community, that is.

Help your squad-mates to unlock.

Co-operative EA shooter Army of Two: The 40th Day and acclaimed EA FPS Battlefield: Bad Company 2 take top billing on Xbox Live this month, with both titles heading to the Games on Demand service.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 may lag on PC and Xbox 360 today not because of the snow but because DICE is applying a hefty patch.

A new multiplayer patch is on the way for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, publisher EA has announced.

The update, which hits PlayStation 3 today, fixes bugs and rebalances various weapons. There's a full list of the changes you can expect to see below.

A message on the game's official site added, "We are working hard on getting these fixes out for both PC and Xbox 360 as well, so in the coming days, look for updates on those platforms as well."

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Oasis, Harvest Day, Heavy Metal, Cold War.

On the eve of Call of Duty: Black Ops' release EA has announced new downloadable content for rival shooter Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

This week's EA Winter Showcase saw Battlefield looking to the past and the future – the former by way of a Vietnam-themed DLC expansion for Bad Company 2, and the latter with an extremely ambitious free online title, Battlefield: Play4Free.

There's a brand new Battlefield game on the way and you'll find out what it is on Friday, according to a tweet from an EA affiliate.

A comprehensive update hits the PC version of EA's FPS Battlefield: Bad Company 2 tomorrow, the publisher has announced.

The patch takes into account requests posted in the 'My biggest issues' thread of the game's official forum. Alas, "Girls don't want to go out with me" isn't addressed but a bunch of other important stuff is.

The full list – posted below – includes bug fixes, weapon tweaks and stat revamps.

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An Ultimate Edition of shooter Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be released in the UK on 3rd September, according to online retailers.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Scrabble on the Apple iPad helped EA make tons of money during its first quarter ended 30th June.

Owners of the Steam version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have been granted access to the Medal of Honor beta test.

Both, of course, are EA games, and both have multiplayer made by DICE.

An Xbox 360 beta is "coming soon", EA has promised, but we don't know exactly when.

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A student banquet: that's what this premium downloadable content pack offers to long-standing Bad Company 2 players. It's when you can't afford to go to the supermarket, having splurged your spending money on cheap booze and ironic t-shirts, so you use up whatever leftovers and ingredients you have lingering in the fridge, mix them together in a slightly different way and bung it all in the oven. The result may stop your stomach rumbling, but it'll never delight the palate.

Now, I'm certainly not insinuating that DICE can't even afford to pick up a giant sack of Lidl pasta, but there's no mistaking the familiar flavours being reheated here. From the maps to the mechanics of this new co-operative mode, it's refried beans all the way.

Playable by up to four players, Onslaught tasks you with steaming into enemy territory and holding key map points. Once an objective is cleared, you move on to the next. Capture all the objectives and you win. Yay. Meanwhile, the game is throwing everything it can at you to stop you in your tracks. Tanks, attack choppers, mounted machine guns, snipers: they're all ready to roll into view (or not, in the case of those pesky snipers) and put you in the ground.

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Back to the front.

EA has announced a DLC multiplayer expansion pack for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 set in Vietnam. It will be released in winter 2010.

A very short teaser was shown of jungle action set to a Creedence Clearwater Revival tune. The press release confirms that you'll be able to play as either US Marines or North Vietnamese Army.

Meanwhile, Medal of Honor was confirmed for a 12th October release date, and Dead Space 2 will be released on 25th January 2011 (28th in Europe).

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EA has announced that Battlefield: Bad Company 2's Onslaught add-on will go on sale for PS3 and Xbox 360 in the week after E3.

More maps and modes from DICE's squad shooter.

Electronic Arts' UK general manager Keith Ramsdale has claimed that 'Project Ten Dollar' is about enhancing the value of EA games, and not an attempt to upset second-hand sales and illegal downloads.

People often assume that if you can rattle through dozens of first-person shooters then you're well placed to kick arse online. Hilarity. Whether or not you've aced the single-player campaign on the hardest difficulty level, going online is almost always a humiliation endurance test as you spend most of your time waiting to respawn.

Ghillies in the mist.

DICE has announced a new, four-player co-op pursuit for Battlefield: Bad Company called Onslaught mode.

EA boss John Riccitiello has called Project Ten Dollar and the new EA Sports Online Pass initiative a "positive consumer experience" that offers a "boat-load" of content buyers otherwise wouldn't have access to.

DICE has announced a new patch for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 that will fix balancing issues on the console version of the game.

The update, set to hit 11th May, will change damage and recoil statistics for a variety of in-game weapons, and fix a few bugs that prevented weapons doing the right amount of damage.

The console update will also implement a host of balancing tweaks that hit the PC version of the game last month. In the other direction, DICE says the update will be applied to the PC version of the game "in the near future".

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While EA and DICE have previously referred to an "extensive paid digital content plan" for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the developer has said it wants to avoid charging for maps.

Shopper enthusiasm for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 may not have been as fervent as for Modern Warfare 2, but DICE's shooter has gone on to break a record of its own, becoming the best-selling March release on record in North America and Europe.

Released in the first week of the month, Bad Company 2 has now sold over 2.3m copies - according to EA's internal counter.

Players have amassed 81bn points during online multiplayer battles and unlocked 43m weapons and gadgets. Also, more than 6m YouTube videos of gameplay have been recorded and the BFBC2 Twitter account has 44,000 fans - the most of any EA game and more than Eurogamer's Johnny Minkley.

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DICE has added Battlefield: Bad Company 2 content to Battlefield Heroes, but you'll have to pay to use it.

The Steam edition of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will ditch SecuROM in an upcoming game patch. Valve's own authentication service will be used instead.

A new Battlefield: Bad Company 2 viral video has poked fun at genre leader Modern Warfare 2.

DICE has revealed more of the "extensive" DLC planned for Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

EA has restated its "extensive paid digital content plan" for Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

DICE may adapt Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to the Mac.

According to DICE, the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has the most players at the moment.

EA's newcomer Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has topped the UK All-Formats chart.

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Everyone loves a fat, juicy rivalry. Pepsi or Coke? Beatles or Stones? SEGA or Nintendo? These simple, binary pop-culture choices prompt endless arguments about which is best, but also help us define who we are and who we stand with. Now here comes EA's Swedish studio, DICE, making no secret of the fact that it wants to add another choice to that list: Bad Company 2 or Modern Warfare 2?

The first Battlefield: Bad Company game was an entertaining blast, with its crudely destructible environments and snot-nosed cast of irascible characters blagging dodgy gold in the middle of a war-zone. Boisterous and exciting, like an affectionate pit-bull, it still felt tentative, timid even at times. This was DICE feeling its way back into a console shooter market that had changed beyond all recognition since they last ventured into the land of the joypad with 2005's Battlefield: Modern Combat.

Bad Company 2, however, is an open challenge to the market leader, Activision's blockbuster behemoth. So let me pin my flag to the mast right from the start. This is the superior game.

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DICE is one of my favourite developers. Not only do they make great games, but this studio is a true innovator. Even when using third-party middleware, as in the case of Mirror's Edge, the Stockholm-based developer still managed to come up with something different and special. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 sees the team returning to its impressive, proprietary Frostbite engine, which specialises in large, open, expansive spaces and a proprietary physics engine that allows for some stunning, explosive, destructible environments.

Better yet, this is a newer iteration of the engine - Frostbite 1.5 - bringing with it a range of new features and performance enhancements over its predecessor. DICE's previous Battlefield games enjoyed a small but significant technological advantage on Xbox 360. So how does Bad Company 2 measure up? Let's kick off with the customary Face-Off comparison movie, and you can check out a triple-format 720p comparison gallery elsewhere on Eurogamer.

Graphically there are several differences between the two console versions, and just how much impact they have on the overall sense of image quality varies dramatically. It's safe to say that the main artifact you'll notice was one that was very prominent indeed in the multiplayer demo. Certain transparencies are handled in a much more visually pleasing way on PlayStation 3. Check out these shots for some idea of what we're talking about.

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EA has detailed the free unlockable content that will be provided with next week's launch of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as part of the company's Project Ten Dollar initiative to make pre-owned sales less attractive.

A code in the box will unlock two maps at launch: Laguna Alta, playable in Conquest mode, and Nelson Bay in Rush mode, bringing the total number of maps to 10.

Two further maps will be released later in March at no extra cost if you have the code: Arica Harbor in Conquest and Laguna Presa in Rush.

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EA has tweeted that the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo has been downloaded more than 3.5 million times on PS3 and Xbox 360 combined.

DICE has confirmed that the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in-game store and launch DLC is part of a loyalty initiative similar to Mass Effect 2's Cerberus Network.

"We want people to insert the code they get when they buy the game to get access to [DLC]. It's connected to your personal account, more or less, and what we want to do is give you something extra, added value, for that," producer Patrick Bach told MTV.

"In the future you will get more content, for free, if you have this VIP code."

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be supported by day-one downloadable content in line with EA's Project Ten Dollar plan.

Senior producer Patrich Bach from developer DICE toed the new line in an interview with WorthPlaying.

"We have an in-game store where you get free content or you can buy new content to the game, so it's a very integral part of the game that we will have a long post-launch campaign," he said.

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DICE is sneaking a Japan-based World War II level into Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Online multiplayer demos for Aliens vs. Predator and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 await you on the PlayStation Store today. They're both free, so there's no reason not to give these two newcomers a spin.

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DICE has announced that the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer demo will be available next Thursday, 4th February on PS3.

EA and DICE have popped a multiplayer Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo on Xbox Live Marketplace.

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EA DICE producer Gordon Van Dyke is talking about first-person shooters. "Nobody wants to be Charlie Brown," he says. "Everybody wants to be Snoopy."

DICE has told Eurogamer there is "no profit" made from forcing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 players to rent dedicated servers instead of building their own.

EA's DICE studio has announced a start date for the PC beta of Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Doors open on Thursday, 28th January, and close a month later on Thursday, 25th February.

One map, Port Valdez, will be available, and it support 32 players in game mode Rush. The focus of this snowy map is the Russians' attempt to bombard Alaskan oil supplies.

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Digital Foundry "hearts" DICE and has a particular penchant for Nordic developers in general. There's always a sense that we'll see something unique in the games that hail from this part of the world, and we're pretty much always guaranteed some lovely technical curiosities to set these games apart from the norm.

DICE in particular rarely disappoints. Even its utilisation of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine 3 middleware in Mirror's Edge resulted in a game that was innovative in both its technical approach and its core gameplay. The firm's latest - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - is the third title to use its proprietary Frostbite engine, and it debuts in the form of a downloadable PSN beta exclusive to the PlayStation 3.

Eurogamer has already covered this multiplayer sampler from a gameplay perspective, but as usual the DF focus is on the Frostbite tech and its general performance. In his piece, Dan Whitehead lauded the improvements made to the destructible environments, but also commented on frame-rate and tearing issues, so let's tackle that straight away with a six-minute montage of clips from the beta.

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Electronic Arts boss John Riccitiello has said the Modern Warfare games are all starting to look the same to him.

DICE has pushed PC beta for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 back to "very early next year".

The good news, studio bigwig Gordon Van Dyke explained on the game's blog, is that desktop users will get an improved build of the game.

"With the huge success of the PS3 Beta we decided to drastically increase the PC Beta's capacity to insure as many people as possible could participate," wrote Van Dyke.

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Jumping from Modern Warfare 2 to Bad Company 2 isn't recommended. While both are broadly similar in concept - modern military shooters set in an imaginary land war between America and Russia - the difference in style couldn't be more pronounced. Infinity Ward's big-bollocked blockbuster has the bone-rattling volume and GRAAAAAGH KILLING SPREE! adrenaline rush, but try those bombastic Hollywood heroics over in DICE's theatre of war and you'll be shot to ribbons before you can say "danger close".

Shots from the PS3-exclusive beta.

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DICE has confirmed that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will enjoy a one-month beta test, on PS3 only, starting on November 19th.

It's exactly as was leaked then pulled by GameStop earlier this week. The beta will be open to anyone who pre-orders the game.

The beta will feature one map, a new one, called Arica Harbor. It has a Chilean setting and is built for a game mode called Rush, which is a spin on the original game's Gold Rush. The mode is "intense", according to associate producer Gordon Van Dyke. "Arica Harbor is hands-down one of the best maps I've played on Battlefield."

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EA DICE may be ready to announce a Battlefield: Bad Company 2 beta this week.

US megastore GameStop started the ball rolling, revealing a pre-order campaign that grants access to a PS3 beta beginning 19th November. That listing was later pulled.

Blend Games (via Kotaku) picked up the ball from there, and heard from EA that there would be an announcement about a beta "later this week".

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Battlefield developer DICE has fired a shot across the bows of rival Infinity Ward, reassuring fans that it will be sticking with a dedicated server set-up for multiplayer in the PC version of Battlefield Bad Company 2.

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Tough love in a cold climate.

Electronic Arts has announced release dates for Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

The game will be released in Europe on 5th March. The US will get it three days earlier.

The announcement was made at EA's gamescom press conference in Cologne. Top exec Patrick Soderlund promised BF: BC2 will "redefine online multiplayer gaming". An impressive trailer followed, complete with plenty of guns, bombs, tanks and things going bang.

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DICE has promised that a handful of Battlefield 1943 weapons will return in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 early next year.

After watching and reading about Volition's Red Faction: Guerrilla earlier this month, you could be forgiven for turning your nose up at Battlefield: Bad Company 2's "Destruction 2.0". It goes further than the first game's technology, allowing you to flatten whole buildings, but it rather pales next to the insane calculations going on in Guerrilla, where legend has it that designers had to be given structural training because their unrealistic buildings kept falling down under the weight of real physics.

Working for Electronic Arts since John Riccitiello returned "feels good", according to DICE creative director Lars Gustavsson, and the chief executive's focus on quality over quantity is "definitely the right direction".

EA has officially unveiled Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 1943 for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

They certainly Preston with this.

Electronic Arts boss John Riccitiello has said that a sequel to Battlefield: Bad Company is in development along with a Wii Dead Space game, and that Mass Effect II will be released before the end of the company's next financial year.