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.

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

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

If you’ve played Bad Company for any amount of time, you’ve likely come across any number of issues in the multiplayer mode. (The single-player and its atrocious AI is an entire story in and of itself; don’t get me started on that.) The development team at DICE is committed to addressing the issues, starting with the release of the classic Battlefield game mode, Conquest. The mode (and altered versions of the game’s maps to go along with it) is currently undergoing testing and certification, which is a good sign we won’t have to wait too much longer to see it.

Following that, DICE will be working on other problems and omissions that gamers have been wanting. On the official Bad Company blog, they list some of the issues they’ll be looking to address, including:

• Clan support/private rooms/team chat
• Auto balancing on servers
• Continued support against stats exploits
• VOIP issue on PS3 (working with Sony on this)
• Squads might be split up when joining a server as a squad. This is due to team balancing in the games that are being joined, and usually resolves itself in round 2.

As a fan of the game (I’ve grown to like it more and more each time I play it), I’m glad DICE won’t be sitting back now that the game has been released. Battlefield games have been notoriously buggy, with patches not coming nearly as often as they should. In my experience, Bad Company doesn’t have a laundry list of game-breaking problems, but the more attention DICE pays to the game, the better.

It was only a matter of time before Qore got an exclusive demo, and it didn’t take long. Qore Episode 2 was released today and includes the exclusive Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm demo. (I wonder how many diehard Naruto fans fork over the $3 entry fee to play the demo.) It’s also got part one of a three part series on the development of Resistance 2. In other words, I continue to regret having purchased a subscription when Qore was first released.

Qore is pretty much the main attraction this week. You can find the week’s new Rock Band tracks (including one free track) and the free Guitar Hero III Top Gun track that Stephany posted about on Tuesday. Although I wouldn’t recommend grabbing the latter, not unless you want to torture yourself with garbage.

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The File-N-Forget Podcast returns this week as we ramp up for our upcoming E3 coverage. With Metal Gear Solid 4 now established in the market and fans going gaga over it, Ron and Shawn give their quick impressions of it along with Battlefield: Bad Company and Alone in the Dark.

Bigger questions loom however as we discuss the state of E3 and what we think might happen in years to come.

There are also Rants & Raves to make the fanboys happy.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

Marketing did a fine job with Battlefield: Bad Company, and moving forward they’ve got their work cut out for them with Battlefield Heroes. DICE executive producer Ben Cousins gave some insight into the market they’ll be targeting with Heroes, which they call the “frustrated restricteds.”

“So who is Battlefield Heroes for? The marketing guys love to come up with snappy titles for market segments. The market segment they came up with for us was ‘frustrated restricteds’ – people who really want to play full games, and aspire to be gamers,” Cousins said during his keynote at GDC Paris, reports GI.biz.

“But they’re restricted in some way, and this makes them frustrated. Maybe they’re restricted by money, time or skill?

“For example, a 15 year-old boy who can’t afford a PS3 – he’s desperate to play Call of Duty, but can’t afford the console. Maybe a 30-35 year-old guy who is a new dad, who used to play games, but is restricted by time. Or maybe a new gamer who loves the idea of playing games but heard that all people who play multiplayer games are really skilled.”

I hardly fit into any of those categories, and I’m still interested in playing Heroes. And I’m hardly the only one who fits that bill, so won’t all of us self-proclaimed hardcore gamers throw off the curve for the people Cousins is referring to? It’ll be interesting to see how DICE handles that aspect of the matchmaking process.