Jul 4, 2011 08:47 GMT  ·  By

The EA Play division of video game publisher Electronic Arts has announced that its free-to-play cartoon-powered shooter Battlefield Heroes will be getting a new map later during the month, the very popular recreation of Wake Island that has already been available in other installments of the franchise.

The company has not said exactly when the new map might arrive, but it will be completely free to all those who are playing the game to celebrate the 2-year anniversary of the experience.

To add to the festive mood, EA Play is also offering two free Party Packs to all those who log into Battlefield Heroes before 8 GMT on July 8.

Each of the Party Packs will include 77 Battlefunds, 25 Festive Flares, a Party Hat to use in the game and a Birthday Suit that can be used for a seven-day period.

One of the offered packs will be for the National side and the other for the Royal faction and, in order to get access to them, players will need to log into the game and then locate the MY Stuff menu and access the Rewards tab.

Electronic Arts says that at the moment there are more than 8 million players who are playing Battlefield Heroes and hopes that the number will increase in the coming months as the game is fully localized in another eight languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish and Russian.

Battlefield Heroes is EA's first major foray into the free-to-play space and has been going strong since it launched.

The biggest problem the game has so far faced is a hack attack from the LulzSec group, which exposed the personal information of a number of players, although the company has reassured the public that no financial data has been exposed.