Armored Kill is the next map pack/DLC for Battlefield 3 and it is set to release in September. It is essentially the opposite of the recently released Close Quarters DLC, where all the maps were about infantry combat in tight corridors on small maps. Armored Kill is all about huge open maps that let you fight in air vehicles, ground vehicles and infantry. There will be new vehicles, like artillery, and other content, like new assignments, on top of the new maps. They are also adding a new vehicle orientated mode called Tank Superiority. I am very excited about Armored Kill and mainly because of the map sizes. For the first time DICE has recognized that none of the maps in BF3 are even close to the size of classics like El Alamein and Fushe Pass. Before I go any farther check out the newly released Armored Kill trailer.

That trailer is unfortunately pretty short, but on the Battlefield 3 blog they have a bit of extra information about Armored Kill. It is known, but they reiterate the point that one of the maps in Armored Kill is supposed to be the largest map ever in the Battlefield series. The map they show off on this blog is that very map and it is called Bandar Desert. It is going to be roughly double the size of Caspian Border, the largest BF3 map at the moment.



One of the developer from DICE, Inge Jøran Holberg, explains how Bandar Desert is huge, varied and delivers a fantastic experience. Bandar Desert, like all of the Armored Kill maps, will feature 64 players on PC. One of the main things that they wanted to do with Bandar Desert was to allow players to plan, so if you know there are incoming tanks you should actually have time to figure out how to deal with them. If you are infantry you might want to buckle down in a city area and wait for them to get near, while if you are a group of tanks you can try to do flanking maneuvers. Inge explained how the map must meet these specifications:

-Support grand scale vehicle gameplay with freedom of movement at long range
-Provide exciting dogfight gameplay for jets in huge mountain ranges
-Contain diversity in gameplay and intensity between different themes
-Offer a great visual diversity both in terms of palette and character
-Support all game modes without compromise
-Differ from the other three maps in the expansion both visually and in gameplay



One of the challenges in creating a huge vehicle focused map like Bandar Desert is balancing all of the kits. They tried to do their best to make it so each kit will have their uses and that no one single kit will be superior to the rest, but in my experience with vehicle maps the engineer kit is almost always supreme and I would love to see them somehow fix that problem. The map contains large desert areas that favor vehicles, but there will also be villages like the one seen above.

There aren't any details yet on the other Armored Kill maps, but I'm sure they will trickle out the details like they did with Close Quarters and Back to Karkand. It will be coming out in September and if you are a BF3 premium member you will get it two weeks earlier than everyone else. The DLC following Armored Kill is called Aftermath and it will be coming in December of 2012, but they haven't detailed it yet. Thanks for checking it out and I hope Armored Kill is as a exciting as it sounds.
More Info: http://www.battlefield.com/uk/battlefield3/blog

-Written by Sean Cargle