Judging from the amount of Battlefield 1 GIFs on Reddit, it seems like gamers have been having a blast with the game's open beta. Alas, all good things must come to an end, including free betas.
EA has announced that the Battlefield 1 beta will officially conclude on Thursday, Sept. 8.
Players will notice one major change to the game in the last few days of the beta, as DICE is removing the time limit on the game's Sinai Desert conquest map. Games on the map will now end only once one team reaches the 250-point limit, rather than having the team with the higher score win at the end of a certain amount of time. This means matches should last much longer, but will also allow for more comeback opportunities than were seen with the time limit in place.
The war's not over yet. The Battlefield 1 Open Beta will end on Thursday, September 8. pic.twitter.com/FkWPE9trX9
— Battlefield (@Battlefield) September 5, 2016
DICE and EA will also be stress-testing the game's servers in last few days of the beta. EA says the beta will begin "simulating extreme launch situations" at some point, so players can possibly expect downtime. It's unclear if the stress test will be ongoing until the end of the beta or if it will only last a specific period of time. The beta suffered significant downtime when it started last week thanks to what appears to have been an attack on the game's servers by a hacker group.
Since then, however, it has been relatively smooth sailing. The beta is still a little buggy, but that's what betas are, after all. With all the data from millions of players, DICE can look to improving the game in time before the game officially releases.
Battlefield 1 will put players in the trenches and war machines of World War I for the first time in the series. The game's initial announcement trailer quickly became one of the most popular video game trailers of all time, coming hot off the heels of Activision's less-than-well-received Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare announcement trailer.
Will the buzz surrounding the game translate to Battlefield 1 overcoming the juggernaut that is Call of Duty this holiday season? That remains to be seen, but the game's positive reception thus far can only help. Battlefield 1 launches for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on Oct. 21. Those who preorder the deluxe version of the game will receive it three days early alongside a number of exclusive unlockables.
