DICE Talks Upcoming Battlefield 4 Beta

Karl Magnus Troedsson, General Manager of DICE, has updated the Battlefield blog with detailed news about the upcoming Battlefield 4 beta. He states that PC gamers will be required to run a 64-bit operating system to join the beta program even though the released product will support 32-bit. He said the studio wants to focus its efforts on testing the 64-bit version of the game.

"During the Beta we will try out both FairFight and PunkBuster to make the experience as good as possible for our players," Troedsson said. "You will notice information about the two anti-cheat measures on the server browser pages on Battlelog, and you will also potentially see messaging in the chat box in-game when a cheater is caught. We will get back to you later with more detail on how we are improving our anti-cheat measures in Battlefield 4."

As previously reported, the Exclusive Beta begins October 1 for those who pre-purchased the Battlefield 4 PC Digital Deluxe Edition (available on Origin), those who are a Battlefield 3 Premium member, and those who are a registered owner of Medal of Honor Warfighter Limited Edition or Digital Deluxe Edition. All other gamers can join the Open Beta fun on October 4 through October 15. The Open Beta will be available on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and Origin.com.

"During the beta, we are aiming to be live 24/7," Troedsson said. "However, we will regularly restart servers on short notice or take down the beta for periods of time if needed for technical reasons. This is because we are still optimizing net code, updating the dedicated server code, updating the server infrastructure, and doing database work."

He notes that gameplay is still being balanced, so gamers shouldn't expect a full-blown early "demo" of the final product. This beta is actually an older version of the game currently in production at the DICE office, as it had to be submitted for testing and certification before going live. Overall the test will focus on the underlying infrastructure – server loads, matchmaking systems, server browsers, and game mode rotations – running at high capacity in the public.

"The data that we will receive during the beta period will be of great value to us when configuring the game for launch," Troedsson said. "Simply by joining the beta, you are helping us tweak very important details in the multiplayer components for our biggest and most ambitious game yet."

The most up to date information on how to find and download the Beta for all platforms will be published on this Beta page. Fans can begin pre-loading the exclusive beta on PC starting September 29 at 10am PDT / 1pm EST.