Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Gameplay Trailer

Battlefield 3 (you know the one, the game from all the posters) looks like it is going to have a pretty thorough multiplayer component. Features like 64-player maps, full aircraft-on-aircraft dogfighting and roaming tank battles were thought to be cherries on top of a dense online shooter vying for the FPS crown with Modern Warfare 3 (or “that other game” as EA staff are contractually obliged to call it). Although, if its new multiplayer gameplay trailer is anything to go by, Battlefield 3 might have more tricks up its sleeve than just boooooring dogfights and -snooze- vicious armoured warfare.

Battlefield 3 is upping the ante even further with choreographed sky-diving free falls, online squads of players hurling themselves off outcrops and chasing helicopters through the sky as they plunge towards the earth. It is heart stopping stuff, the sort of set piece that single player shooters have perfected over many years and now multiplayer games are trying to emulate. There are many more moments like that in the trailer, but talking about them would be horribly spoilerific. So just watch.

How it will work, we will find out shortly. Whether it works, again, time will tell. Is Modern Warfare 3 scared? Who knows. All we do know is that a bit of competition can be a marvellous thing and that, in the not too distant future, the next wave of action games is arriving.

Battlefield 3 releases October 25 in the US and October 28 in Europe for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.