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Want to get an early look at the full trailer for Battlefield 3, complete with producer commentary? Then you and several hundred thousand friends need to like the Battlefield Facebook page. At least they aren't threatening to shoot puppies. More »

Here's the thing: everything we've seen of Battlefield 3 has been running on PC, and maybe five percent of PC players are going to get that kind of graphical fidelity. For a lot of folks, the console version is going to be their only choice -- so what should they expect?

According to DICE executive producer Patrick Bach, the console version obviously won't have all the graphical bells and whistles of its PC counterpart. Speaking to Videogamer, Bach said the console port will lack the "higher resolution, the higher framerate, the anti-aliasing, the motion blur, stuff like that" that we've seen in the trailers released so far.

Still, it's not all doom and gloom. Despite some performance differences between Bad Company 2 on the PC and consoles, for example, both run quite smoothly and looked great.

If you're of the opinion that the visuals presented in Battlefield 3 are the result of some kind of forbidden voodoo magic, EA and DICE have evidence to prove otherwise. Check out the gallery below for a ton of concept art, renders and other behind-the-scenes looks at how the sausage gets made.

#behindthebattle Video game beauty is only polygon deep, right? Not so with Battlefield 3. This latest series of screens, concept art, and renders take us under the skin and behind the scenes of EA's next big shooter. More »

While delivering a keynote speech at the Ad Age Conference in New York, EA CEO John Riccitiello pitched the marketing moguls in attendance on video gaming's increasing prominence in the advertising industry. Not just with regards to in-game ads -- though he did talk up their strength, citing President Obama's use of virtual billboards during his campaign -- but also on the growing market of video game advertisements themselves.

Riccitiello anticipates that Electronic Arts and Activision will drop "a couple hundred million dollars [worth of] marketing" on the next iterations of their respective shooter franchises, Battlefield and Call of Duty. We've got a better idea -- why not distribute that money directly to the fans, which they can then use to buy more copies of your game? Like, that just seems like Marketing 101.

Electronic Arts is setting the bar high for Battlefield 3...

Besides taking out snipers and engaging in all out street warfare, the soldiers of Battlefield 3 are tasked with even more dangerous situations -- sneaking into a basement to take out IEDs, for instance, while earth tremors threaten to end the mission prematurely.

Get that wire cut and establish a forward position! Actual gameplay footage based on pre-alpha software.

Oh, there’s a story to these BF3 videos? OK, then! I just like watching stuff explode. (more…)

#video Most of this new Battlefield 3 trailer consists of lighting effects and people being shot. What's got me interested, though, is the fisticuffs in the middle. More »

Here's the second part to that demo they revealed in full back at GDC.

Take to the rooftops for some counter-sniper action in this snip from the campaign of Battlefield 3!

Maybe you weren't aware, but sniper rifles fire really, really large bullets. The latest Battlefield 3 trailer plays on that truth, showcasing a squad of US soldiers avoiding "an effing 50." That's alotta metal!

DICE: getting very good at making people on the internet go “ooooh.” Case in point, Battlefield 3 – of which we’ve seen very little, but everytime we do it hammers home a sure sense that this is far more than your average man-shoot. Here’s another decent chunk of in-game skulking and firefighting, ably demonstrating both the splodeyfects and the rather impressive barks/ conversation system the game seems to employ. (more…)

#video You've been here before - pinned down by a sniper. But something about Battlefield feels fresh and immediate. This might be modern warfare, but that doesn't mean this is old hat, not by a damn sight. More »

Well, this Hugo Strange guy appears to be totally well-adjusted and normal.  When it comes to games that have been recently shown to the assembled press over the past few of weeks, two games are battling it out for the top topic of discussion: Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City. BF3 was shown off at an event during the Game Developers Conference last week, and the Batman demo made its first appearance at a Microsoft event the week before that. I caught the demo there, and was pretty impressed... so much so that we went back to see the demo a second time during GDC (and shoot an interview that you'll see in a few days).

Along with that interview, you'll get a bit about the last bits of the GDC week demo, which weren't shown last week and I've apparently signed away my ability to talk to you about the new bits until Friday. But let's talk about one of the more interesting "old" bits. In the demo, Batman has an exchange with Catwoman. He's just saved her from Two-Face and he's about to save her again from Joker, who's rigged up a sniper rifle in a nearby bell tower. But between those two attempts on her life, there's time for a brief interrogation.

Batman asks about what the Joker's up to and what role Hugo Strange is playing in all of this. But he also asks about something--and this is the part that is presented as backwards audio in the demo--called "Protocol 10." Catwoman claims she's never heard of it, but speculates that Strange, as the guy that's in charge of Arkham City, has something big planned for Batman... and that maybe that's what this Protocol 10 is all about.

What's it mean? It means that Warner and Rocksteady still have plenty of things to reveal about the particulars of Arkham City. That shouldn't surprise you, but I have to admit that I was a little surprised by this weird little quirk in their demo... it's definitely the first time I've seen anything like this, and it made for a fun little game for me and my rudimentary audio editing skills. Of course, "Protocol 10" doesn't seem to turn up anything related to Batman online, and the Comic Vine team had nothing to add, either, so it's safe to assume that this is something new for the game and not something directly plucked from the books. So I suppose the mystery is still a mystery?

We'll have more with Rocksteady's Dax Ginn on Friday.    

Publisher ready to go to head-to-head with Activision.

#interview You can't make a first-person shooter without a story driving it. Gone, it seems, are the days of Battlefield games that are just that: A virtual battlefield. More »

If you're jonesing to see more of DICE's next, super-pretty shooter Battlefield 3, you should strike while the iron's hot -- by which we mean "before the iron gets pulled from YouTube." Check out some shakycam footage from the developer's GDC presentation posted after the jump.

#video Shot on the sly at GDC, the Italian gaming site Multiplayer.it provides this peek at the visual tour de force of Battlefield 3 - including urban combat with buckling pavement and crumbling buildings, and even an aerial sequence? More »

Battlefield 3 promises a next-gen experience regardless of the hardware upon which you play it. Blow the doors off of more details from Exec Producer Patrick Bach at GDC 2011!

You fellas see this point on the map right here? That's where I'm gonna BLOW YOUR MIND!

#gdc The rig DICE game developers used to run Battlefield 3's debut live gameplay demo yesterday, as seen at the game's showcase event in San Francisco. More »

It's been over five years since Battlefield 2. Although DICE has had concepts for a sequel in mind since then, the real work could only begin once the team had the tool Battlefield 3 demanded: a new engine. Why? "The short answer is this: No other engine can build a Battlefield game."

"If you don't have the right tech, you can't build the right experience," DICE executive producer Patrick Bach told us. Unlike other engines, which are meant to be repurposed and packaged for third-party licensors, Frostbite's reason for existence is singular: "The Frostbite engine is solely created to make Battlefield games."

Battlefield 3 is unnervingly beautiful. The GDC presentation is one of those rare moments where you see a new graphical benchmark being defined. Bach claims they are the "first ones in the next generation." Seeing the game running on a souped-up PC, it's hard to disagree.

So! You’ve read our Jim’s sparkling words regarding the GDC Battlefield 3 presentation. Would you like to watch some of the in-game footage that he did, using your eyes? You would?! OK! (more…)

#preview For a few years now, the people at Electronic Arts have been trying to make a better ice cream sundae. More »

Forget that teaser trailer - EA's finally uncorked "episode 1" of its Battlefield 3 trailer and it's right here for your enjoyment (or, depending on your interests, your edification). Highlights include: crazy realistic lighting, an interesting cover mechanic, and the ability to drag downed squadmates to cover. It's not much, but this hype train is just leaving the station and we're a long ways from its fall 2011 desination.

No more spin-offs. Finally, a true sequel.

Take a tour of duty through the bad part of town with this stunning gameplay premiere of Battlefield 3!