Battlefield 3 is not being abandoned with Battlefield 4 in development, says Bach
Battlefield 3 is not being abandoned now that Battlefield 4 is in development. DICE and EA have said this, repeatedly, ever since the beta for the game was announced as a pre-order incentive for Medal of Honor: Warfighter. In case you still need convincing, Battlefield's executive producer Patrick Bach went on video record with VG247 at gamescom to try to alleviate any lingering fears you may still be harboring.
Speaking with Sam Clay, Bach said the reaction to Battlefield 4 from the community was mainly positive, with a few dustings or two from the series' most "avid fans."
"Most of the comments so far have been positive, but some of the more avid fans get upset because they think this means we may no longer support Battlefield 3 - which is of course completely wrong," said Bach.
"The game is very near and dear to us, we have all the expansion packs coming and we're showing stuff from them. We have a big team working on it - so we're not changing any of that. We're still working on Battlefield 3 and making sure it's the best game we have on the market right now.
"But we are working on BF4 which is more or less all I can say."
When asked whether fan reaction would have been less vocal should Battlefield: Back Company 3 had been announced in BF4's stead, Bach said such a scenario would have depended upon the community.
"We'd probably [have gotten] a better reaction [to a Bad Company 3 announcement] within a certain group of our community, but again, we're getting a lot of good feed back for BF4, and of course there are some people who want something different," he said. "No matter what you do, there's always those who want something different, so it's a constant struggle."
"The other thing is, we've been releasing Battlefield games in a constant stream. If you look at all the Battlefield versions we've had - the Bad Company series Battlefield 1943 - there's a lot of Battlefield between Battlefield 2 and Battlefield3 - so it's not as if we're only working on one thing at a time.
"We've had several piplelines going in parallel, so people shouldn't worry too much about those things."
The next BF3 expansion, Armored Kill is out next month, and there's isn't a solid release date for Battlefield 4, nor a window in which we can expect the beta to hit.