The latest entry to the first-person shooter video game “Battlefield’ franchise of game developer EA DICE is “Battlefield 1” and it will officially come out on the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, and the PC on October 21.
On August 30, the game developer released the game’s beta and it was made available to gamers for a little over a week.
Now, the results are in and if it would be an indication of the reception of the game once it officially comes out to the gaming consoles and the PC, then “Battlefield 1” is sure to be a big hit.
It turns out that “Battlefield 1” has attracted 13.2 million players during its nine-day run, and is officially the biggest in EA DICE’s history. The game has just broken the record set by “Star Wars Battlefront” beta a few weeks before its official release in October last year, which drew 9 million players, details Gamasutra.
The first-person shooter video game with a World War 1 setting did not just beat the internal record of EA DICE, it has actually bested the record set by Blizzard Entertainment’s “Overwatch” which has the honor of being the largest beta in history with 9.7 million players.
Looking ahead to the game’s future DLC
Because of the immense success of the “Battlefield 1” beta, the EA DICE team is reportedly looking ahead at a future DLC content of the game, which would come out in December or about two months after the game’s official release next month.
The December DLC of “Battlefield 1” shall feature a new map called Giant’s Shadow which shall throw players into the Battle of the Selle that took place during the fall of 1918 in France, reports iDigital Times.
Giant’s Shadow is in reference to the massive airship that crashed on the field during the battle. The airship was the one previously teased about “Battlefield 1.”
Based on the description of the December DLC, it shall feature the British forces breaking through the Hindenburg line and are now in pursuit towards an important railway center.
There shall be fierce infantry and tank engagements that would follow on the open ground and river banks alongside the Cateu-Wassigny railway.
Reports also have that that the DLC shall feature an armored train in the Sinai Desert, which will come as part of a free update.
After the December DLC, “Battlefield 1” shall reportedly feature four expansion packs that shall be bringing 16 new multiplayer maps to the game.
Feeling out the gamers
When EA DICE launched its open beta of “Battlefield 1” on August 30, its intention was to feel out the gamers and generate as many feedbacks as possible in order to fine-tune, tweak, or improve the game.
After the nine-day testing among gamers, the developer has come to a decision to update the Conquest mode of “Battlefield 1” particularly with regards to match duration.
In fact, even before the beta ended, the timer for the open beta for “Battlefield 1” has been disabled for the Conquest mode. However, the other mode in “Battlefield 1” entitled Rush, had no changes until the end of the nine-day beta testing.
The nine-day open beta testing for “Battlefield 1” is considered by critics as a generous amount of time for a beta.
In addition to the generous nine-day beta that officially ended on September 8, the developer also provided early access for many players of the latest installment to its popular first-person shooter video game franchise.
Even before the open beta of “Battlefield 1” ended, EA DICE started running the beta under extreme launch conditions, which is basically a stress test, to give the publisher a sense of what day one will be like and prepare accordingly.