14 DAY TRIAL // Developer DICE is apparently looking to bring the Community Test Environment feature for its military first-person shooter Battlefield 4 to console players in the near future.
The service enables Battlefield 4 players who own the Premium Edition of the popular shooter to become involved in the balance and tweak development process, and to experience all the new content earlier than any other players out there.
Publisher Electronic Arts owns the Origin client, as well as all the servers that handle the multiplayer of Battlefield 4, which is why the feature was first introduced to PC gamers.
Given the fact that the console adopters of the Premium Edition are getting the short end of the stick in the deal, DICE decided to enable them to join the Community Test Environment anyway, with the only caveat being that they would have to own a PC good enough to run Battlefield 4, which was quite inconvenient for many.
Fortunately, it looks like that's coming to an end now, as DICE aims to deliver its early updates to consoles players on their home entertainment systems, in spite of the hurdles it has to jump over in order to bring them to the Xbox Live and PlayStation Store clients.
A pretty cool bit of information
This means that everyone involved with playing Battlefield is going to have a say in what goes into the game in the future, which is great, especially considering the extra money paid by owners of the Premium Edition.
The Community Test Environment affords DICE access to all of a player's data, and in exchange for this, gamers get access to pre-release content and tweaks before everything is implemented for the outside world.
Granted, this also means that whatever bugs get into the system will also pop up in your game, as the CTE is essentially a testing ground for upcoming features, but the benefits usually outweigh the costs by a rather large margin.
The good news comes from Battlefield 4 veteran Westie, whose informative videos are always delivering useful tips and explanations for whatever DICE is doing and why.
The Final Stand DLC was just released at the beginning of the month, and in spite of it being the last scheduled piece of downloadable content for the first-person shooter, there are rumors that DICE might be working on an additional piece, to be delivered sometime in 2015.
A small team of core developers is also working together with Dead Space makers Visceral Games, hammering away at Battlefield Hardline and getting it ready for its release in March 2015, in order to make sure that it meets all expectations Battlefield fans might have.
