14 DAY TRIAL // DICE has now released even more details about the pre-order bonuses that are currently available for the upcoming Battlefield 3 first-person shooter, which sparked a lot of heated debates on the web.
Battlefield 3 is set to appear in October, for a variety of platforms, so Electronic Arts, its publisher, is trying to hype it up by offering plenty of pre-order bonuses, including free access to the Back to Karkand map pack or the recently announced Physical Warfare pack.
As you no doubt know, early this week many Battlefield fans were engaged in a bitter debate, with many feeling that the weapons and attachments included in the Physical warfare pack were overpowered and served to destabilize the multiplayer experience.
DICE answered some of the questions yesterday, through an official FAQ, and now, the studio's general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson posted another response on the Battlefield blog, saying that the Physical warfare pack is just going to be a timed exclusive for those who pre-order the game, and will be released for free to all other Battlefield 3 players at a later time.
"I would like to start by clarifying that the Physical Warfare Pack is a time-based exclusive. If you do not pre-order Battlefield 3 at a retailer carrying the Physical Warfare Pack, don’t worry. We will unlock the contents of the Physical Warfare Pack for free to all Battlefield 3 players later this year."
More details about its availability will be available in the following months, the DICE executive says, while highlighting that "if you do not pre-order, you will still get access to this content at a later date, free of charge. If you do pre-order, you will get access to it from day one."
In terms of the Back to Karkand downloadable map pack, Troedsson says that the free access to it for those who pre-order are a way of thanking them for supporting the game before it's even out, and it will be much more than just four remastered maps from Battlefield 2.
"Back to Karkand is a massive, themed expansion pack available a period of time after the base game, developed by a separate team here at DICE -- the same team that brought you Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam. If you played Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam, you have a pretty good idea about the scope and ambition of our expansion packs.
"This is so much more than just four remixed maps. If you pre-order Battlefield 3, you will be able to play Back to Karkand at no extra charge as soon as it is released, but it is not day one DLC and it is not on the base game disc."
Those who don't pre-order Battlefield 3 can still get the Back to Karkand DLC separately for a certain amount of money.
Basically, DICE has eliminated pretty much every one of the complaints sent forth by gamers with these new announcements, so the community might finally forgive it.