I know that there are several fans of the Battlefield series that wondered if there would ever be a proper PC sequel Battlefield 2. After all, DICE has been concentrating on console development of late, with the release of Battlefield: Bad Company last year, and the imminent release of Battlefield 1943 on PlayStation Network and XBox Live, not to mention the targeted release later this year of Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Well, it’s time for a big sigh of relief. According to G4, development of Battlefield 3 has been officially confirmed.

It seems that John Pleasants, Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Arts, had the following to say in a presentation at the William Blair Growth Stock Conference, confirming that he’s seen Battlefield 3,

“I’ve had the luxury of looking at Battlefield 3 over at DICE in Sweden and was highly impressed by the way the team is working on that product. Of course, that’s not [coming out] in the fiscal year, but that is a product that is looking very good.”

So, no worries, PC shooter fans. The penultimate military shooter is indeed headed back to your platform of choice. It looks like it won’t arrive until later in 2010, but there is light on the horizon at last. Here’s hoping that it hews closer to the line of Battlefield: Vietnam, my personal favorite of all the Battlefield titles.

I’ve been a fan of the Battlefield series since BF1942 launched way back in 2002. I have to admit to being at least moderately excited about the upcoming release of Battlefield 1943.

Sure, it’s just a downloadable game for consoles, but BF: Bad Company was a blast, and BF1943 is based on the same Frostbite engine. Sure, it’s just a remake of some classic maps for BF 1942, but they were great maps!

Anyway, on the back of this month’s gamesTM magazine (a German games publication) you can find an ad for Battlefield 1943. In that ad, it lists the release date for the game as June 25 on Playstation Network and XBox Live.

Here’s hoping that’s entirely accurate. You can find that ad after the break.

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After a renewed start we had an interruption these last few weeks but rest assured Filefront is still hosting and promoting all the great user created and hosted content contributed to us. We return with a double length post highlighting some great mods and files for quite a few outstanding games including usual suspects like Half-Life 2, the Battlefield games and of course one of my favorite series “that I am really no good at yet still enjoy” - Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Highlights from this week’s column include mods for:

• Doom III - Wrathchild Act I (not ROE compatible), Revised Alphalabs
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - A Provost of the Nine Divines, More Nord Beards
• Battlefield 2 - Operation Peacekeeper, Allies Intent Extended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Ballistics Mod
• Far Cry 2 - new maps: MP_Surf & Gold Rush

There are also links to other maps, mods and patches for many of your favorite PC modifiable games. Be sure to check it all out after the jump.

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The Open File, Gaming Today’s feature piece on the news and interests of the FIleFront network of file sites returns this week after a long hiatus. In the spirit of great cooperation we’ve aligned with the producer of the Filefront Network Insider to provide user submitted news blogs and links to recently updated modification files and maps hosted among the various file communities.

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There’s a video review of the single-player storyline for Battlefield: Bad Company available on ChannelFlip. I know most gamers don’t buy Bad Company for the single player experience. For those days when your friends are all busy doing something productive with their lives, or you finally reach your breaking point and get fracked off with all the noobs online; there is a single-player option.

Form up you maggots!

Are you getting tired of the same old FPS cliches being trotted out time after time?

Well fear not: in Bad Company, the Battlefield experts have turned their hand to creating a single-player campaign which offers a refreshing and high quality take on the genre with great graphics, an interesting plot and non-cringeworthy script, and of course decent gun play to boot.

Oh yeah, and the best damn soundtrack ever.

Check it out!

We knew it was coming “soon,” but in Valve Time, that means it’s coming once Duke Nukem Forever goes gold. It looks like that’s not the case for DICE, as they’ll be releasing the much-anticipated classic Battlefield mode, Conquest, to Battlefield: Bad Company owners free of charge on August 7.

This should go a long way to helping extend the game’s legs. Gold Rush is fun, but it can get old fairly quickly and doesn’t allow for much player freedom. Of course, you could argue the same about Conquest, but it’s clearly stood the test of time, having been the lifeblood of the Battlefield series since 1942.

Four of the existing maps will be modified to support Conquest, with hopefully more to follow.

image via Bad Company gallery (taken by Turnbull)

DICE has said before that they were testing Conquest mode in Battlefield: Bad Company, which is the de facto game mode in every PC iteration of Battlefield. They’ve now announced on the Bad Company blog that Conquest is coming to both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 for free “soon.” With Microsoft’s stringent certification process, it’s anyone’s guess as to when exactly “soon” is.

The content will include the traditional Battlefield multiplayer game mode, Conquest. Conquest focuses on the capture and control of flags; once a team captures a control point, its members can re-spawn in the area. When a team loses control of all their flags or control points, they cannot re-spawn.

Maintaining control over the flags on the battlefield is a key to victory and the ability to re-spawn troops close to the battlefront can make all the difference for that last offensive push. Four existing maps have been redesigned along with all new lighting and weather effects, to give players a great battlefield on which to play Conquest.  Upon entering one of these maps, the U.S. ARMY will face off against either the Russian or Middle Eastern Coalition forces and the battle for control of the territory will begin.

Free-loaders who are still hanging around the demo version of Bad Company will soon find it much more difficult to get into a game. The majority of the servers supporting online multiplayer in the demo will soon be shut down and converted to servers for the retail game. Surely by this point you’ll have decided whether or not you’re interested in buying the full game.

As if the hardware numbers didn’t clue you, Metal Gear Solid 4 dominated the software charts for last month here in the United States. The game sold 774,600 units, but if you combine that number with how many Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 bundles were sold (which include a copy of the game), the NPD estimates that about a million copies of MGS4 were sold last month. I guess people really wanted to know whether or not Snake and Otacon would have that dreamy ending they’ve been wanting since the end of the original Metal Gear Solid.

There are a few other easy-to-predict things in the top ten, such as Guitar Hero On Tour selling quite a few copies, as did Wii Fit and Wii Play. Battlefield: Bad Company (on 360) and Ninja Gaiden 2 both had strong sales, as did Mario Kart Wii.

But the major surprise — aside from GTA IV’s disappearance — is just how well Lego Indiana Jones sold. With the new movie being released, it was assured a good number of sales, but the Wii, PS2 and DS versions of the game combined for 822,600 copies sold, or in other words, straight cash money.

Kris Pigna over at 1UP made a good point regarding On Tour, suggesting that the game’s sales may have been much higher if the DS bundles were included in the figures. It’s worth keeping in mind, but I’m sure Activision is happy with selling 400k copies of a game that will likely have legs.

June 2008 Software Sales

1. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) — 774,600 (Roughly 1 million including bundles)
2. Guitar Hero On Tour (DS) — 422,300
3. Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360) — 372,700
4. Wii Fit (Wii) — 372,700
5. Wii Play (Wii) - 359,100
6. Battlefield: Bad Company (Xbox 360) — 346,800
7. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) — 322,400
8. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure (Wii) — 294,500
9. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure (DS) — 267,800
10. LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure (PS2) — 260,300

This probably the largest press release I have ever seen - or at least since I have been at Gaming Today. Normally they are pretty much short, to the point, and padded with overly positive and glowing quotes regarding just how fabulous the announcement is to them or how wonderful it is to work with so and so.

I wonder if we will ever get a press release that includes quotes from people who hated to work with one another? For example: “Bob was drunk all the time and kept playing grab-ass with all the female employees” or “John was such a tyrant that I wanted to spit in his tall-quadruple-half-caff-light-foam-latte with soy milk every morning. God I hated that guy” or “Pete stunk so bad that even after I got home of the evening I could taste cabbage in the air - even in my apartment”.

Anyway, this press release is more or less a massive list of upcoming titles from EA and its studios which will be released around the holidays and into next year. These titles will also be showcased at E3 next week with the initial press conference being hosted by CEO John Riccitiello, will also spotlight many of the creative leaders behind the games.

The complete line-up of titles on display at E3 are as follows:

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
• Crysis Warhead
• Dead Space
• FaceBreaker
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• HASBRO FAMILY GAME NIGHT
• iPhone/iPod Touch Games from EA Mobile
• iPod Games from EA Mobile
• Left 4 Dead
• LITTLEST PET SHOP
• Madden NFL 09
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
• Mirror’s Edge
• Mobile Phone Games from EA Mobile
• Mobile, iPhone & iPod titles
• MySims Kingdom for the Wii and Nintendo DS
• MySims, made for the PC
• NBA LIVE 09
• NCAA FOOTBALL 09
• Rock Band 2
• SimCity Creator for the Wii
• Skate It
• Spore
• The Lord of the Ring: Conquest
• The Sims 2 Apartment Pets for the Nintendo DS
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 for the PSP
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
• Zubo

For the full press release including more information on each title listed, as well as the prerequisite “sweet as honey” quotes from EA’s John Riccitiello and John Pleasants, read on after the jump.

Via: Press Release

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Many Battlefield: Bad Company players got a nasty surprise when they logged into the game this morning. A huge outcry was raised when people discovered that their stats, ranks, and weapon unlocks had been completely reset. Even the people who purchased the Gold Edition with an extra five weapons could no longer access them. Thankfully though, the issue seems to have been just a short-lived hiccup. The servers were reset apparently, and it just took some time for everything to return to normal. You can probably expect that sort of thing to happen in the game from time to time, so don’t panic and just wait it out if it does. After a couple hours though, raise hell.

Via EA Forums