14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer DICE has announced that only 24 players will be able to take place in the Team Deathmatch mode on the PC Battlefield 3, despite the fact that 64 players will be able to compete in other multiplayer modes.
The announcement is likely to be a disappointment for long-term fans of the series who were hoping to compete in teams of 32 players that battle one another in the huge arenas created with the Frostbite 2 engine.
The 24-player maximum number was already announced for home consoles like the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, but PC-based players hoped that their platform would have to deal with it.
Team Deathmatch has not been included in the Battlefield game so far and with the number of maximum players set at 24, it's very possible that it will never reach the popularity of the main Conquest mode, which supports 64 players at the same time on the PC.
Other multiplayer game modes include Rush, Squad Deathmatch and Squad Rush.
Battlefield 3 also supports cooperative play and will offer a complex single-player campaign.
DICE has create a completely new engine for Battlefield 3, called Frostbite 2, which allows gamers to use their weapons to destroy most of the landscape around them, adding a new level of realism and tactics to the genre.
The game will face tough competition from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which is being developed by Infinity Ward and will be published by Activision Blizzard, a game that is also relying heavily on its multiplayer modes to generate sales.
The launch date for Battlefield 3 is set for October 25 in North America and October 28 in Europe and gamers will be able to enjoy the first-person shooter on the PC, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the PlayStation 3 from Sony.