It's been two days since Battlefield 3 has been and many people have been wondering what is going on with their pre-order bonus of Back to Karkand, well they have finally released information and screens all about it. Sadly, the expansion pack isn't slated to release until December. It will feature the four Battlefield 2 maps remade: Strike at Karkand, Gulf of Oman, Wake Island and Sharqi Penisula. If I recall correctly, that gives us two ocean/island maps, one desert map and one forest one map. All in all that should add a good mix to the current eight maps in Battlefield 3.



On top of the maps the Back to Karkand expansion pack will provide new weapons, new vehicles, "a new persistence system where players complete assignments to earn rewards", new dog tags and new Xbox 360 achievements/PSN trophies. There are two new vehicles, a F35B jet and a BTR-90, which is an APC of some kind if I recall. The new weapons are: the MP5 (sub machine gun), PP-19 (assault rifle), L96AI (sniper rifle), L85 (modern british assault rifle), Famas (fully automatic assault rifle), Type 88 (sniper rifle), Jackhammer (shotgun), MG36 (light machine gun), Type 95 (light machine gun) and Type 97 (sub machine gun). You can full the full list and pictures here. The sad thing about those weapons is that they are all recycled from previous Battlefield games, possibly all of them from Battlefield 2 in particular which would indeed fit with the idea of the of the Back to Karkand expansion, but I can't help wanting to see some new or interesting weapons.



The Back to Karkand map pack looks pretty substantial and it should be popping around right around when people are started to getting bored of the current maps. The expansion pack will be free to everyone who has a limited edition of Battlefield 3, but they do not specify how much it will cost for those who have a different version. Thanks for reading and you can find the official post about it over at Battlefield 3 Blog, they also have three more screenshots over there as well.


-Written by Sean Cargle