Battlefield 3 beta – "Hundreds" of changes from alpha, day one patches likely

Battlefield 3's September beta won't be a cosmetic affair, and will result in changes for day one patches and Battlelog right up to launch. Head below for audio of DICE devs talking about the beta, confirmation of "hundreds" of changes being made to the game based on the alpha and everything we know about the beta so far.

In regards to the Battlefield 3 beta, the billion dollar question is "when".

Speaking in a roundtable interview in Sweden last week, game dev head Patrick Bach was coy when pressed on a specific date.

"Soon," he said.

A fellow DICE staffer added: "Well, we've said September, so it'll be soon."

Bach then said: "Before the game ships," before his teammate said, "Sometime between now and the end of September."

The final game itself releases on October 25.

Bach went on to say the alpha and imminent beta are working tests, and are very much affecting the end product.

"There were plenty of complaints, of course," he said in answer to VG247 reader Colin Gallacher, who asked whether or not feedback from the alpha had impacted the shooter.

"There were some things we found out that we wanted to change based on the alpha; quite a lot, actually," he said.

"Everything from gun-balancing to the placement of the objectives on the Rush map; we actually moved them around based on [the fact] that the first base was quite hard to take. We are still moving things around on that map to utilise feedback from the alpha.

"That's why we're doing it. It's not to market the game, it's actually to test it in a proper way. There are hundreds of things that we've changed since the alpha.

"Again, to the beta question, we are releasing the beta before the game and we are actually changing stuff based on that before we ship the game, even though you could argue that that's very late close to the ship of the game, we will still have time to do, for instance, day one patches and changes to the Battlelog that will actually be game-changing."

Bach was speaking during a trip to DICE last week by VG247, RPS and Eurogamer.

As to what to expect from the beta itself, DICE has been noncommittal up to this point. You'll get a map, obviously, but it's unknown if there'll be more than one.

As the BF3Blog guesses, it's likely to be a larger level so all modes of combat can be tested, and it's expected the beta will go live for all platforms: PC, 360 and PS3.

Obviously, you'll need to be a Gold Live sub if you're playing on 360. Those that bought the Limited Edition of Medal of Honor last year are guaranteed a spot, as you are if you pre-order the PC version through Origin.