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Medal of Honor: Warfighter debut trailer confirms October release date

EA have just released a trailer for the previously announced Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The upcoming shooter is being developed by Danger Close and will use the Frostbite 2 engine. It’s getting a worldwide release on October 23rd.

I’ve embedded the debut trailer below. It features whispers, ACOGs, helicopters, boats, bullets, feet and hats; all within a few seconds of each other. You’ll also hear distorted drones that remind me of another EA franchise. Funny that.

EA’s latest studio will focus on a “new generation” of Frostbite 2 games

EA have just opened EA Gothenburg, which will focus on a “new generation of games” using the Frostbite 2 engine. That’s the notoriously pretty tech that powered Battlefield 3 and Need For Speed: The Run.

Frostbite 2 was created by Stockholm-based EA DICE, and has yielded impressive results on PC and, to a lesser extent, console. It also manages to push my rig to the absolute limit, which makes me happy. EA Gothenburg are currently hiring for over 12 new staff, so give them a shout if you have the skills and want in. Alternatively, check our news feed for the latest developments from Gothenburg.

DICE rebuilding Battlefield 3 with massive upcoming patch

DICE have released a humongous list of fixes they’re planning to make in an upcoming patch on Battlelog. It consists of dozens and dozens and dozens of tweaks. A reduce in recoil here, increased bullet spray there, the individual changes seem minor, but the sheer number of should make this Battlefield 3′s most important update yet.

Almost every weapon in the game has altered which should have a significant impact on the way Battlefield 3′s fire fights feel. The changes don’t just stop at weapons. Vehicles have been altered, bipods have been significantly buffed and Battlefield 3′s most popular weapon attachments have received attention. If you’re a big Battlefield 3 fan, you’ll definitely want to take a look at this list.

Oh, and “tanks can no longer drive into the water and cross the Wake Island lagoon completely submerged,” That’s just one of many bug fixes that you’ll also find included in the patch notes below.

Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand review

The Back to Karkand expansion for Battlefield 3 started a war inside my head. On one side, the cynic. On the other, the boy who likes shooting things. “£12 for four old maps, ten old weapons and a few scrappy vehicles?” The cynic scoffed. “Shut up!” the boy cried. “I just killed a tank by shooting a rocket through a hole in an apartment block!” It’s an argument the cynic was never going to win.

The maps are fantastic. But then they should be: Wake Island, Gulf of Oman, Sharqi Peninsula and Strike at Karkand are all Battlefield 2 maps, rebuilt to work with the graphical power and explodiness of the Frostbite 2 engine. The four-year old architecture has been tweaked and iterated upon countless times. They’re finely honed, fair, and consistently deliver great games.

Battlefield 3 sells 11 million, new DLC announcement expected next week

EA had an earnings call earlier this week, which gave their executives a chance to shout about what a good year they’ve had. During the course of the call, chief financial officer Frank Gibeau mentions that Battlefield 3 has sold more than 11 million copies, boosting EA’s market share in the “Western FPS market” by 11 points to 24%. The rest of that share probably still belongs to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Battlefield 3 devs hiring “anti-cheat” admin

Last week we took a look at Battlefield 3′s escalating problem with hackers and cheaters after one hacker group claimed to be able to use a Punkbuster exploit to get innocent players banned. EA told us that “we are actively looking into the specifics of this issue and we are confident that we will have a permanent solution in place shortly.”

While we await that fix, it looks like DICE are already taking further steps to tackle hackers. Eurogamer have spotted a job ad looking for an “anti-cheat administrator” who will perform “an absolutely vital function to secure the online experience our games represent.” Will this be enough to push back the aimbots?

Battlefield 3 hackers use exploit to ban innocent players

Like every competitive shooter, Battlefield 3 has a problem with hackers and cheats who use exploits and aimbots to boost their stats. Recently the problem seems to have become more serious. The unofficial BF3 blog mentions an instance in which one of DICE’s own moderators was uncovered as a hacker. Now a group of hackers are advertising an exploit that allows them to get innocent players banned.

The author of this Reddit post got in touch yesterday with links to hacker forum discussions revealing exploits that would trick Punkbuster into ejecting honest players. A number of threads on the Battlelog forums have been started by players claiming to have been banned from Battlefield 3 games without cause. There are plenty of reports of servers and leaderboards dominated by bots racking up hundreds of kills.

DICE have recently said that they’re ramping up anti-cheat measures and have been issuing bans en-masse to cheaters they’ve been catching, but among Battlefield 3 players there’s increasing scepticism over the levels of security offered by anti-cheat program, Punkbuster.

PC Gamer Digital Episode 7 – The Battlefield 3 Special – now available on Steam!

You’re captivated by the elegant figure of an F/A 18 Super Hornet as it roars over the desert and—BRAP B-BRAP!—syncopated machine gun bursts ripple past your head and cut your gawking short. You sprint to cover in time to watch a tank shell devour your last entrenchment and spit out its dusty remains. Alone you’re dead, but above you a UH-1Y Super Huey chops through bursting sun rays and scatters reinforcements like dandelion seeds (if dandelion seeds carried rocket launchers, of course).

I do love hyperbole, but this really (virtually) happened to me. The emergent drama of Battlefield 3′s large-scale multiplayer battles is hard to overstate, which is why we’ve dedicated the latest episode of PC Gamer Digital, which is available now on Steam, entirely to Battlefield 3 and the renowned Battlefield series at large. More details below!

Battlefield 3 devs ask for feedback on future tweaks

Battlefield 3′s core gameplay designer, Alan Kertz has opened up DICE’s Battlefield 3 patch ideas for feedback on Reddit. The discussion, spotted by Games.on.net, has been going for a few days, but includes frank assessments of many of Battlefield 3′s unlocks along with a suggestion from Kertz that “the player is limited in choice due to a few accessories being the clear winners in almost all categories.”

The list of suggested balance changes haven’t been decided on yet. DICE have decided to go to the community for some feedback first.

Crysis 2 most pirated PC game of 2011

Crysis 2 was the most pirated game last year, with nearly four million illegal downloads according to a report on Torrent Freak. The numbers were collated from stats put out by public BitTorrent trackers, and suggest a slight decrease in overall piracy numbers compared to 2010.