Battlefield Heroes Beta Ready to Re-Open

DICE has been pretty busy lately and, weirdly, none of its releases or ongoing projects was connected to the Battlefield multiplayer series that made the developer famous. Sure, Battlefield: Bad Company had the name, but it was primarily a single player experience and quite an enjoyable one.

DICE's next project was Mirror's Edge, a game featuring very little shooting and quite a lot of running, an uncharacteristic measure for the DICE guys. And their next project is Battlefield Heroes, which again has the name but is oriented towards a very different audience, say, Battlefield 2.

The developer close the beta of Battlefield Heroes in the last months of 2008 saying that the game needed more time and development before players could get a real feel of what it was all about. And now it is saying that the multiplayer game is ready to enter a new beta phase, which is designed to lead up to the official release. All those players who were part of the initial beta will automatically be entered into the upcoming one and the official website also offers interested players a chance to sign up. DICE is not guaranteeing that all those who sign up will be getting a beta key.

Battlefield Heroes is a new thing for both DICE and publisher Electronic Arts. The game is set to be free to play, sustained through commercials and other means to be announced, and the overall look and feel are tailored to appeal to more casual gamers. The animations are cartoon like and the classes are limited. Still, DICE reportedly had some issues with balancing the whole thing out, so the initial beta was closed in order for changes to be made to the game.

Electronic Arts is said to be working on releasing Battlefield Heroes sometime in the first three months of this year. Until then, let's see how the beta goes.