Battlefield 3 Expansion Packs on the Horizon

Article first published as BattleField 3 Expansion Packs on the Horizon on Technorati.

EA has plans to release a DLC pack for BattleField 3 this June for Xbox and PC platforms and a week earlier on PS3. 

The pack is called "Close Quarters" and features 4 new maps and 10 new weapons exclusively for them. It's been reported that there will be ten new assignments and five new dog tags only available with the DLC.  The Ziba Tower map was previewed this week with a trailer released on the official Battlefield blog but later removed due to a copyright claim by EA.

Improvements include visual enhancements such as couches, desks and shrubbery for interior spaces which have been a bit lacking in standard BF3 game maps.  The DLC expansion maps in "Close Quarters" don't offer designated spawn areas which can leave a player literally spawning in the middle of a firefight.  That's by design as this DLC is designed for more hectic and faster paced gameplay.

This will be the first of 3 expansion packs for BF3 with the other two, "Armored Kill" which is rumored to be a vehicle only expansion pack and "End Game" which is speculated to either be the end of the Battlefield series of games or the end of DLC content for BF3.  "End Game" is scheduled for Winter 2012 release with "Armored Kill" scheduled for Fall 2012 release.

Little is known about "End Game" at this point but "Armored Kill" is said to have the largest map ever to be created for a Battlefield game. 

Although there's no official word it's likely the price for the DLC packs will be near the $14.99 price point of the recent Back to Karkand expansion pack released last winter.