DLC for Battlefield 3 released, titled Armored Kill

The new downloadable content (DLC) for the Battlefield 3 game, one of the most popular and biggest First Person Shooters (FPSs) released last year, was recently released. The DLC, titled Armored Kill, was released along with a major patch that rebalances much of the key gameplay of Battlefield 3. The developer DICE has also released a trailer for the game.

The DLC for the game focuses mainly on vehicular combat on large sprawling maps. Back in July, developers from DICE talked about creating the biggest map the Battlefield series has ever seen for Armored Kill. DICE Designer Inge Jøran Holberg said, “Reading a number of posts by these players in our forums, I personally agreed that even with maps like Operation Firestorm, Kharg Island and Caspian Border, Battlefield 3 lacked a couple of extra-large maps with huge distances and lots of capture points that they have experienced in some of the maps in earlier Battlefield titles to complete the range”.

Holberg elaborates on the studio’s inspiration for the map. “Since Iran was a major area of operations in Battlefield 3, it felt natural to get inspiration from there as a first step in creating some maps in “Xpack 3”. Seeing the desert scenery from the real Bandar Desert area, I really got inspired, and immediately knew we could create something really exciting out of it”.

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Armored Kill is out

He goes on to state that Bandar Desert supports 64 players and jets. Everything has to be larger and build more on the vehicle gameplay on a grand scale. It also has to be scalable for the console versions of the game, which supports fewer players, without it compromising on the PC version’s 64 player support.

The map is also set to be huge. According to the post, “In Conquest Large, Bandar Desert is stretching as far as 1,900 meters from U.S. to Russian deployment, not counting the airstrip at the very end of the ground forces combat area. This is even longer than Fushe Pass from Battlefield 2. Bandar Desert is about as wide as it is long at the middle flags – it measures 1,900 meters from the mountain base furthest from the sea all the way to the beach at the south edge of the map”.

In July, Electronic Arts (EA) had confirmed plans for the release dates of the last two pieces of DLC that would be included in the Battlefield 3 Premium Edition. The Aftermath DLC is set to release some time in December this year, and Endgame is set to release in March 2013.

The last DLC released for Battlefield 3 was Close Quarters. It is a themed expansion pack that brings the team play of Battlefield 3 to tight indoor environments. The frantic infantry combat happening within close quarters is amplified by high amounts of environmental damage, thanks to the Frostbite 2 engine.

The first DLC released for Battlefield 3 was Back to Karkand. The DLC brings back four of the most popular maps from Battlefield 2; Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Wake Island and Sharqi Peninsula. Back to Karkand also brought ten new weapons into the game. Also introduced to the game were three new vehicles; the SVTOL fighter jet, desert buggy and an APC.

The Armored Kill DLC is available to subscribers of Battlefield 3: Premium, and will be available for non-subscribers in a couple of weeks. For more information about the DLC, head over to the official website.