In an interview with GamerSpawn, Karl-Magnus Troedsson, General Manager at Dice, answered a few tough questions regarding the date of the Battlefield 3 beta. First, he does admit that it is coming out a little later than the DICE team would have liked, saying, “I know that some people are saying it’s coming in a bit late, but we’re still happy to put it out there.” He also went on to assure us that, “what’s also very important here is that when we launch Battlefield 3, that is just the start. We’re going to take care of this product for quite some time afterwards.”
Even though the beta is coming out seemingly quite late, it seems that the DICE team could still have used more time in preparing it. When it comes to the coding in the beta, Troedsson also admitted that “it’s a couple of weeks behind. So, there might be problems in that that we’ve already fixed [since then].” This is important for many Battlefield fans to know so that they are not so thrown off by potential bugs that could be found in the beta.
The Battlefield 3 beta was originally planned as a closed beta to which only the Medal of Honor Limited Edition owners would be invited. However, DICE seems to have changed their mind. Troedsson comments on the thought process: “I think it’s important for us to get as many people in as possible, and it’s quite a bit of a hassle to actually to hand out codes, you know, if we want to get to a large number of people. So, at some point we just decided, let’s go with an open beta and have as many people as possible come in. For the people that have some special incentive etc. …we’ll give them early access to the beta instead.”
With the beta quickly approaching and the DICE team probably working many long and hard hours to get Battlefield 3 polished and ready for launch, Troedsson mentions that “The atmosphere is quite intense… The team is really really fired up.” He continues to admit that “There’s a lot of nerves involved. There’s a lot of things that need to come together. During the last month of game development, a lot of tough decisions need to be made, you know, to hit the dates.”
Wondering how DICE decided which maps would be making it into their first expansion pack, Back to Karkand? Troedsson explains that, being the spiritual successor of Battlefield 2, “it felt very natural to us that when we did the first expansion pack, that we actually would, you know, use the most played maps of Battlefield 2, and that’s actually how we selected them. We just looked at the stats.”
If you just can’t get enough of Battlefield, you’ll be happy to know that Troedsson revealed that DICE has “a lot of ambitious plans for the post-launch of Battlefield 3.”
Make sure to follow @MPFirst on Twitter for more Battlefield 3 info, and don’t forget to read up on the PTFO movement!