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Battlefield 3 Development Megathread

PixelCrunch

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Title: Battlefield 3
Developer: DICE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Game engine: Frostbite 2
Development started: Late 2007 (aprox.)
Release date: 19 Oct 2011
Platform(s): PC, PS3, X360
Codename: Venice
Key art

Introduction
Battlefield 3 begun development sometime in late 2007 by DICE in Stockholm, under the project name 'Venice'. The project was first announced to be in development in early 2010, although the first teaser trailer wouldn't be revealed until over a year later. Battlefield 3 was the first game released on DICE's new Frostbite 2 engine, a heavily updated version of the Frostbtie engine used in previous entries to the Battlefield series, such as Bad Company 2. Prior to release, several more gameplay trailers were released showcasing various features and locations of the games plot, story and multiplayer modes. Upon release the game was met with overwhelmingly positive reception from fans of the battlefield franchise, praised largely for drastic increases in graphical fidelity, realism and attention-to-detail, as well as an in-depth progression system allowing for hundreds of hours of replayability. Even to this day, the game is regarded by many fans as the best entry in the Battlefield series.

The first publically playable build of Battlefield 3 was released to a select few users in the form of an Alpha Trial (Build 760867) on July 18 2011 to the PC platform, and was held under a strict NDA. Needless to say, many screenshots and recordings of the build were leaked around this time. Unlike previous Battlefield titles, the game introduced players to Battlelog, an online service used to keep track of game stats, friends and more. This was also the way players would launch the game. The Alpha Trial took place on a single map and gamemode, Rush on Operation Metro, a map set in and around a Paris subway station. Compared to the retail release of the game, the map featured a driveable LAV and a more 'gritty' colour palette. The HUD also featured a green tint (Can be seen here - changed to blue in the final release) and several placeholder icons. Only a select number of users were invited to the Alpha Trial via email (Estimated around 10,000), and as such most never had the chance to experience this version of the game. This is currently the earliest available build of the game, and is no longer playable due to DRM, though this may change in the future if / when somebody works out how to bypass EADRM for this version. This build is now very difficult to find online, although I can not provide a download link due to our policy on EA content (sorry).

The next playable version, the Open Beta (Build 862700) was released on September 27 2011, and included many enhancements over the Alpha Trial, including (but not limited to) many more playable weapons, changes to weapon mechanics, changes to the base map (Operation Metro), an additional map (Caspian Border) featuring vehicles like tanks, jets, transport vehicles etc, and reintroduced players to the infamous Conquest gamemode. Many changes were also made to the game engine, colour palette, user interface and much more. The beta, although a newer build than the Alpha introduced many bugs to the game, possibly due to the addition of console builds. Players would often fall through the map for no apparent reason, and the beta included many animation glitches, from minor to downright crazy. Thankfully most of these were ironed out by the time the game was released. A blue filter was added to the game prior to the Beta, a design decision criticized by many, even to this day. Though the filter was reduced prior to the final game, it was never removed completely. The HUD in this build of the game was changed to blue, although still differs from the final game in shade and visual effects. During the beta, an update was released to reduce the advanced terrain destruction in order to prevent a bug where players would fall through the map. Sadly it was never restored to pre-beta levels, and as such, deep foxholes and trenches are not possible in-game. Like the Alpha trial, this version of the game is no longer playable due to online connectivity and DRM.


---To be continued---
 
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