It’s telling that the first word to reach us on Battlefield 4’s China Rising map pack wasn’t in praise of its new sandpits waiting to be painted a fresh red, but a warning direct from EA about dropped connections. Battlefield may claim to know war, but it doesn’t take a Sun Tzu to see the game might be better off attending to its own affairs before expanding its borders.
But China Rising was promised as a pre-order bonus, and so DICE must plough on, squinting through the bugs. Let’s see what each of its four new maps brings, shall we?
The videos were all shot by Battlefield streamer Westie at the same Guildford event last month’s Battlefield 4: Second Assault footage emerged from. Gosh, these maps are landing at an astonishing rate, aren’t they? Perhaps that’s the extra manpower of DICE LA we’re starting to feel the effects of.
Dragon Pass is a remake of well-remembered Battlefield 2 map Dragon Valley, in which the mountains don’t so much define the action as watch over it, nudging players down a winding, and quite soggy, valley path:
The astonishingly green Guilin Peaks promises to be the bloodiest Rush map since Operation Metro, thanks to a central tunnel that acts as a natural choke point:
Silk Road embellishes its CoD-like military base with undulating sand dunes, but doesn’t look especially exciting for it:
And Altai Range promises the views and palette of Skyrim, half a decade after we first imagined Oblivion with Guns:
They’re a mixed-purpose bunch, then, but all somewhat gorgeous. What do you make of them?
Thanks, VG247.