Sad to say fellow free to play fans, the long awaited Battlefield Heroes is off the radar for a summer launch.
Swedish development team DICE announced recently that they’re going to hold off on their ambitious summer 2008 release. According to the Battlefield Heroes site, they’re now targeting a release date of ‘Late 2008’. Do I smell a Thanksgiving/Christmas release?
Battlefield Heroes is a colorful and playful extension of the popular first person shooter series that revolves around a cartoon look. Battlefield Heroes serves as EA’s vehicle to test the treacherous waters of Free to play, ad-driven, micro transaction based gaming. Heroes is a browser based version of the popular Battlefield universe. The EA/DICE project has also been toned down and simplified adding a light-hearted, cartoonish take on combat in an attempt to induct a wider audience.
Battlefield Heroes remains one of the highest profile free to play games in the North American market. Given the hype and profile, it’s a bit understandable that EA wants to iron out every conceivable wrinkle before unleashing the fun on the general public. The closed beta started back in May, and DICE sites a number of beta tester information and comments that they want/need to address before the game goes live. While this may be a setback for fanboys wanting their cartoony first person shooter, it’s better to have things right before releasing a sub standard product. If EA manages to get this free to play title right, it very well may be the herald and benchmark for all free to play titles in the North American market.
To top off the ‘Just hold your horses’ announcement, I did a bit more checking around on the Battlefield Heroes site: Battlefield Heroes is currently being developed only for the Windows XP or Vista OS. What about all the Mac players out there?
Tags: battlefield, DICE, fanboys, first person shooter, free to play, heroes, mac players, micro transaction, microtransaction, North American, Thanksgiving
