Today DICE has released the second Beta of the Battlefield 2 v1.50 patch. Check it out:

Thanks to everyone on the Battlefield forums that have taken part in Battlefield 2 Beta 1. We have taken a lot of feedback and made more fixes to come up with Beta 2. Bjorn has made modifications to Operation Blue Pearl so be sure to give your feedback on the new layouts here.

Download Patch 1.50 Beta 2 - Fileplay (UK/NL)
Download Patch 1.50 Beta 2 - ReplayIRC (NA)
Download Patch 1.50 Beta 2 - ThePirateBay (Torrent)

Since Beta 1 this is what we have changed, updated and fixed:

* Consensus to revert to 0.3 second delay between jump and prone - Fixed
* Mouse wheel acceleration on jeeps and APC’s - In Test
* Mouse wheel acceleration on parachutes - In Test
* Falcon controller prevents joystick controls being assigned to work especially on jets and helicopters. Falcon always acts as primary controller for pitch and roll. Resets to Falcon at the start of every round. - Fixed
* The jets on Highway Tampa were replaced with attack choppers in 1.50 - Fixed, Highway Tampa is now as it was in 1.41
* The graphics for Highway Tampa are the same as Mashtuur City on create a local match in the menu and load screen. - Fixed
* Picking up the kit of a player who disconnected causes crashes - In Test
* Audio settings do not always save after clicking APPLY - Fixed
* Registry Version remains at 1.4 after Update 1.5 is installed - Fixed
* BF2OpenAL.dll was version 1.1.1.0 - Fixed - Updated to version 2.1.8.1
* ch_gas_station collision mesh on Dragon Valley was inconsistent with other gas station buildings - Fixed
* MEC artillery piece on Operation Clean Sweep changes to the USMC's control when they capture the Airfield flag - Fixed
* Challenger2 HUD icon was incorrect showing M1A2 HUD icon instead - Fixed
* Road to Jalalabad has PLA FAV spawn in place of a MEC FAV - Fixed
* Dragon Valley Chinese artillery used default respawn time instead of 360 seconds as other artillery uses - Fixed
* Bizon (PP-19) had no delay time after weapon switch - Fixed (this now has a delay of 0.666)
* F35B had a lock delay of 1.5 compared to 1 second lock delay of other aircraft - Fixed
* Incorrect camo Humvee was being spawned in Taraba Quarry - Fixed
* UH-60 (Black Hawk) guns had 0.25 splash damage setting, down from 3 making it difficult to hit infantry. - Fixed (this is now set to 1.5 to improve the UH-60's usefulness while not allowing it to dominate)
* It was impossible to pass a claymore unless an engineer disarmed it first. - Fixed (players can now go prone to pass the claymore)
* Allow BF2.exe to use more than 2Gb RAM on machines that support it - Fixed

Download the new beta patch today and leave your feedback.

You may remember Battlefield Senior Producer Karl-Magnus Troedsson as the guy who introduced us to Frostbite. Well, he's back in this interview with Gamereactor. In the interview, he talks about what changes have been made in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and the plans for the PC version.

"Will it be like a Battlefield 3 for PC players, or would you say that's something for...later?"
"Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on PC is not Battlefield 3. Battlefield 3, we haven't really announced anything about that yet."
"But it's coming, apparently..."
"You will see."

We sat down with Karl-Magnus Troedsson, executive producer on the Battlefield franchise at DICE, at the Battlefield party last week in San Francisco, to talk about the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company 2. He talks up the single player and mentions the PC version of the game although the specifics on the PC version are classified at this point. You will also hear the words Battlefield and three in the same sentence!

You can check out Gamereactor's other Bad Company 2 coverage here.

As promised, the first trailer for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was revealed tonight.


As far as "teaser trailers" go, this is about as teaser filled as you can possibly get. Feel free to share your thoughts on the teaser and what you expect to see from Bad Company 2 when it's released.

So far, at least four different sites have managed to grab some hands-on time with the upcoming Battlefield 1943. Eurogamer has a nice two page spread that outlines the key changes made to the game since 1942.

Never mind Bad Company - welcome to Dimwit Company. Nobody's talking to one another - hardly surprising, since the guys to either side of me are Italian, French and Spanish - and once the landing craft hit the beach, we've all regressed by about seven years. Italy's landed a biplane upside down on an anti-aircraft gun, and I'm stuck fast in a trench. In a tank.

Battlefield 1943 may be simplified - three maps, three classes, one objective - but the key word is accessibility, not casual. There's a tutorial this time - the first in the series, rather unbelievably - that introduces you to the concepts offline and then lets you practice in planes and tanks unmolested by hostiles. There are facilities for private matches, clans and squads, and there are levelling and reward systems (Achievements/Trophies and a broader range of honours beyond that, although no unlocks), but for the majority of people approaching the game from scratch, it's a one-click process to start playing, and it's not difficult to understand what's going on. You pick an infantryman, rifleman or scout class and then choose where to spawn. But it's still Battlefield, and it still punishes you for pratting around.

More hands-on impressions come from GameSpot, Team Xbox, and InsideGamer.nl (translated URL).

If that weren't enough for you, there are new videos showcasing previously unreleased footage of the game and interviews with the game's developers. Here's the first glimpse at the Iwo Jima map from Battlefield 1943.


Gamereactor has two additional videos. One is a brief overview of Iwo Jima and a short discussion about what to expect in 1943, and the other is an interview with Patrick Liu.

Gustav Halling, a designer over at DICE, has sent us a very nice Q&A about Battlefield 1943 that he translated from his interactions with the Swedish Battlefield community. It should answer a few questions you guys may have about the game.

My weekend have been spent on answering questions for the Swedish Battlefield community and now I like to give all non-Swedish speakers the chance to learn more in-depth what Battlefield 1943 is all about!

Read all the answered questions from my session at BF2.se and the game’s producers blog and please don’t hesitate to ask new questions in the comments!

Will there be any ships in the game?
BF1943 have 2 hangar ships and and LCVP’s.

Is there any support for clan matches?
There will be support for Private Matches in BF1943.

How many kits will there be in BF1943?
We have focused down the number of kits to 3 kits that enables you to do almost everything that you could do in BF1942 with 7 kits!

* Infantry - SMG, Hand grenades, Anti-tank rifle and a lethal Wrench!
* Rifleman - Semi-automatic Rifle (Garand etc), Rifle Grenade, Hand grenades, knife
* Scout - Bolt-action Sniper Rifle, Expack (C4), Pistol and sword/knife

Infantry and Scout seem to have some kind of anti-vehicle weapon, what about Rifleman?

Rifleman have his Rifle Grenade rifle that does damage to vehicles!

Is BF1943 a “Internet browser” game?
No, BF1943 is not a Internet browser game, it’s a download-only game on X360, PS3 & PC.

Is there any stats system?
Yes, BF1943 will use a stats system very much like the one in Bad Company.

Is there any medic packs or ammo crates on the levels?
No BF1943 wont have either.

* BF1943 uses a regenerating health system
* BF1943 uses a replenish ammo system

The ammo system is balanced with reload and overheat systems. You still will have clips with 5/8/30 rounds that needs reloading and the hand grenades, Expacks and Anti-tank ammo is on a reload-timer!

All this together will give you an gaming experience where you don’t need to run around looking for crates and can focus on what’s fun, pwning some enemies! =)

How does the Air strike work?
The Air strike can be called in by anyone and it’s controlled by that person!

How does the recoil and deviation system work?
BF1943 uses my new weapon design that instead of randomizing bullets in a big circle as in many other games, your bullets will instead “walk” after each other.
This doesn’t mean that it’s easier to use the weapons but they will be easier to learn, control and master!

Is there any unlocks?
We wanted to give all players the same experience from start and thats why we will not use unlocks but give you all the weapons and gadgets from the start!
But our stats system will give you things to hunt for instead!

Why does BF1943 have a 24 players?
64 players are of course awesome but will all good there is some hurting also. I can assure you that the 24 player limit is not about us being lazy but the massive experience of a massive battlefield is not bound to the amount of players!
And as many of you remember most clan wars where player with 8vs8 or 12vs12 and what we have seen many of the 64-player servers are mostly half-full or having lack of performance.

We have made it sure that Battlefield 1943 will feel big and have a fast pacing, bf1942 actually had very low pacing! If you place 100 people in one room it feels very small, but if you put 100 people on the streets it seems like nothing!
24 players will give us the benefit of having full servers almost all the time and the whole map area is being used!

Beside these design decisions there are technical limitations. Microsoft and Sony have a very strict bandwidth limit on consoles and we are networking a lot more then 24 players:
- 24 players are networked
- Almost as many physics driven vehicles with movable and destroyable parts
- All destruction, if a wall is being destroyed on one client we need to update it on all the others, otherwise we could end up with players hiding behind non-existent walls.

If we did remove all destruction and all our vehicles we could have more players. But no other game gives you the wide gaming experience we have!

I can't see any minimap on the preview videos, is it removed?
BF1943 will have a minimap at release, it just haven’t been added yet =)
The videos you see are recorded from a pre-alpha build and is not always the final version!

Has anything been done about base raping for collecting stats?
Yes, BF1943 uses a anti-base-rape system that makes it impossible to get any stats inside enemy bases!

How are 24 players going to fill up the maps?
We have tweaked the map sizes to fit 24 players but still staying true to the original maps!

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That’s all for now! Make sure to give me your thoughts and questions in the comments!

You can head over to his blog to ask any other questions you may have. Thanks for the info, Gustav!