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Did a DICE Employee Confirm Battlefield: Bad Company 3?
Battlefield: Bad Company 3 is apparently in development according to a now deleted tweet from an alleged Electronic Arts employee. Publisher Electronic Arts hasn’t revealed what the next Battlefield game is supposed to be, despite announcing in January of this year that the next game in the popular multiplayer shooter series will release in October 2018. The lack of official information has led to plenty of fan speculation as the actual reveal nears.
Back in March, a widely circulated report seemingly confirmed that a World War II era game titled Battlefield V was in development. According to the report, the first-person shooter is being made at DICE’s main Swedish studio and will be the series’ 2018 installment. However, things have now gotten even more uncertain as rumors about a potential Bad Company 3 continue to make the rounds online. And the latest rumor comes from inside Electronic Arts.
An alleged DICE Los Angeles employee named Abbas Al-Rubaie tweeted out a message saying that Battlefield‘s 2018 release is “BC3.” That abbreviation refers to Bad Company 3, which would continue the humorous, destruction-heavy series that was last seen in 2010’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Adding credence to the rumor is the fact that Al-Rubaie made his Twitter account protected after his premature announcement started to make waves. Additionally, the official Battlefield Twitter continues to follow his account, @snipe3r, and has made no attempts at distancing themselves. This isn’t the first time that a potential Bad Company sequel has come up as YouTuber AlmightDaq, who previously leaked the existence of Battlefield 1 in 2016, has stated that Bad Company 3 is in the works, although he believed that it was not a 2018 title.
Interestingly, DICE Los Angeles has traditionally been a support studio. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson previously said in 2015 that it was “highly likely” that the LA-based developer would work on their own game in the future. This could very well be their first standalone project while the main studio in Sweden works on the previously rumored Battlefield V.
This could essentially lead to the Battlefield series having a development structure more akin to Activision’s Call of Duty series, which has three main developers working on titles independently of each other. The upside to this structure is that the development teams have more time to work on their own games while still providing annual releases for the publisher.
Gamers won’t have to wait much longer for confirmation as to whether or not the next Battlefield title is Bad Company 3 or a World War II title, as Electronic Arts has already announced that the next game will be shown at their EA press conference this June. It’ll also be playable at the EA Play fan event of the same name that will take place during E3. EA Play has traditionally been the company’s answer to E3, as the publishing behemoth has foregone attending gaming’s biggest convention in recent years.
