Battlefield 3 Premium Released June 4th, Trailer Reveals New Content
Battlefield 3 Premium, a premium service for Battlefield 3, was released four days ago. At first glance, seemed like EA‘s counter to Call of Duty ELITE. It provided a season pass to all Battlefield 3 expansion packs along with a few nifty exclusive features.
I was skeptical about Premium’s performance; a Call of Duty rip-off didn’t seem like it would be too popular among Battlefield gamers. During E3 2012, EA showcased their Battlefield 3 Premium launch trailer, which caught my attention. As I anticipated, it started off by going through the Expansion Packs.
First up was Strike At Karkand, the expansion that many Battlefield 3 players are already familiar with; it was mostly just a map pack that revisited some Battlefield 2 maps and introduced a few new weapons. Next, they showed Close Quarters, the upcoming DLC that promises ‘HD Destruction’ in close quarters environments along with new maps, game modes, and weapons. Armored Kill followed, boasting brand new vehicles and supposedly the largest map in Battlefield history, appearing to be a desert map. The vehicles included Strykers, rocket artillery, and even an AC-130, expanded Battlefield 3′s somewhat limited vehicle interaction and adding a new level to the field. There were two more DLC’s that were mostly left to the imagination: Aftermath, perhaps a post-apocalyptic situation or maybe Battlefield’s answer to Treyarch’s Call of Duty zombies, and End Game, which leaves “Lethal High-Speed Action” as the only hint.
After the expansion packs above, Premium seemed to include the usual exclusive content that would come with a similar premium service. Dog tags, camouflage, fancy new emblem options, tutorial and developer’s videos straight from DICE, more weapons, and convenient features such as queue priority and a reset stats button. So far, Battlefield 3 Premium has started out fairly successfully amidst the complaints from gamers. The day it was released there were already a good number of players with the Premium denotation on their killcams, and one of my friends had left to go and buy it from the store. I’m still holding off on Premium, but maybe EA is actually giving Battlefield 3 players a good deal despite the company’s stormy reputation.
