We are ready to start talking about Battlefield 4 Final Stand, and we have a lot to talk about. In the Battlefield 4 Premium video we released a few months ago, we gave players their first glimpse at the high-tech action that awaits. In the weeks ahead we’ll also show you a lot more of that monstrous little drone and the other exciting new toys that will be in Final Stand. WATCH THE GAMEPLAY TRAILER BELOW.

With Final Stand, we knew from the start that we wanted to evolve the Battlefield experience and offer weapons and vehicles that behave differently than anything else on the battlefield. Taking place on the artic landscape of Russia, where the scientists of today are experimenting with technology that will define the battlefields of tomorrow (Battlefield 2142, anyone?), Final Stand will deliver four maps that are unique and distinct. With its military installations set against a wintry landscape, expect intense, infantry-focused combat.

Final Stand – Operation Whiteout

Players will also discover secret prototype weapons and vehicles that further tie into the fiction around Final Stand, and to some extent the Battlefield series. This includes a Battle pick-up rail gun that fires a single round of powerful kinetic energy, and the hover tank prototype, which uses eight experimental jet propulsion engines to nimbly move around the battlefield. We have a few more surprises up our sleeves that we’ll share with you in the weeks ahead.

We definitely had a lot of fun designing these maps and the future-tech weapons and vehicles of Final Stand and hope you guys have as much fun with them as we do. That’s why we want you to start playing them now. Starting today we are going to be testing pre-release versions of the Final Stand maps on the CTE (Community Test Environment).

The amount of feedback we’ve been getting via the CTE has been incredible, and is a tremendous asset to the team here at DICE LA. That’s why we have decided to bring the community into the process even earlier as we reach the finish line of Final Stand.

Starting this week we will run servers with one of the four maps available to play per day – starting Tuesday September 9^th. The number of player slots and servers will be limited – so not everyone with access will get a chance to play this time around.

This is the first time we have ever done something like this at this early stage – and we hope it will mean a more stable and higher quality release in the end!

Final Stand – Giants of Karelia

Taking part in the CTE

We know a lot of players out there want to take part in the CTE, so we have opened up the number of available slots on the CTE.

As previously, you will need a PC Premium account to sign up, visit http://cte.battlelog.com for more information about what is happening on a daily basis during this week.

See you on the Battlefield!

Kristoffer Bergqvist & David Sirland
DICE LA

Cheaters are a big problem in today’s games and especially in first person shooters. It’s my job to fight them in Battlefield as best we can and I’ve noticed frustration coming from the players regarding what’s being done in this matter. I’d like to share some of the work we do on the anti-cheat team.

FairFight

If you don’t already know, we introduced a new anti-cheat software called FairFight for PC that monitors each players’ gameplay and flags the player when they do something suspicious or something that no legit player can do. Creating a new rule takes time. We need to make sure that the rule is configured and tested properly before we start taking any action on it. Rules needs to be analyzed and validated. No legit player will be banned based on having multiple awesome rounds. The rules aren’t built based on solely K/D stats, FairFight takes more than that into consideration. The evidence we collect are solid and there’s no doubt that the player was cheating.

With FairFight, we can also put out restricted areas – areas where players can go into walls and be hidden and not killed. When a player enters these restricted areas they will get kicked from the server. Restricted areas have been put there by FairFight as a temporary fix until the teams can release proper fixes to the matter. Metro and Locker have had a lot of these glitches fixed since release, and when we find new ones (either ourselves or with the help from the community) we try to get a fix out as soon as possible.

The Banning Process

Our policy on banning cheaters is very strict – we only ban a player if there’s evidence that he or she is in fact cheating as we don’t want any false positives. I’m not saying that no evidence = no cheating, it’s just that we can’t ban anyone if there’s no solid evidence of it. Suspect players are being monitored a bit closer, and we look for other ways to prove their guilt.

So what kind of evidence could the community look for? It could be abnormal stats or uploading a video on YouTube (please do not do any editing to the video). Players being caught cheating will never just receive a stat reset, they will always get a time-based suspension or a ban. Disputes will always be read and checked against the evidence.

Keep in mind that cheating players will always tell the world that they are innocent and that their stats on Battlelog might not contain anything suspect. They are instructed by their providers to have normal stats so they can fool FairFight and not get caught. Most cheat distributors have lists telling their clients how to play and not get caught by FairFight. Well, it’s not working. We are catching them.

Reporting

It’s great that the community helps out reporting suspect players, but we’ll never ban a player based on just reports. We use them as guidelines to who we should monitor a bit closer. Around 97% of the reports are players getting reported by someone else just one time. Insanely good players are playing Battlefield and they may come across as cheaters. Some of them may of course be cheating and sooner or later they will get caught. We have had some of the best players at DICE playing, and it’s totally awesome to see their gameplay.

My team and I are working hard every day to make the anti-cheat effort as good as it can be but improvement takes time. Some improvements might be implemented instantly since it’s an easier feature while others might take a longer time. I often read forum threads and take everything you say into consideration since there are great ideas out there and some of them are already implemented. I encourage you to continue to help flag cheaters to us so everyone can enjoy the game.

I hope this shows that we are taking the cheating matter seriously and that it proves that we are improving our efforts to catch the bad guys.

Sincerely,

Sabina af Jochnick
Battlefield Anti-Cheat Administrator

Over the years, the Battlefield™ series soundtracks have made their mark and have emblazoned their melodies in our ears. Battlefield 4™ is no exception.

We are honored to partner with Dimitri Vangelis & Wyman X Steve Angello to bring fans of the artists a unique opportunity to get their Battlefield related videos featured in an official trailer. The icing on the top – the trio is providing their latest hit song “Payback” as the soundtrack (click here to listen). The song title is all too fitting as we all have those formidable foes we seek to exact revenge upon on the Battlefield.

How to Submit Your Video for a Chance to Be Featured in the Official Trailer:

- Video Requirements: Your video must be of at least 720p resolution and 30 frames per second.

- Audio Requirements: Please provide a video that does not have any background music or copyrighted material.

- Type of Content: Submit any Battlefield 4 gameplay footage (stunts, top plays, epic moments). We are leaving it open to allow you to use your creative mind. Respect the rights of others. Provide only content (1) that is not defamatory, obscene, offensive or indecent, (2) that is not confidential or proprietary and (3) that does not violate or infringe any third party rights.

- Submission Deadline: Tuesday, September 9^th at 9:00AM PT

- Submission Method: Email an unlisted YouTube link of your video to battlefieldsocial@ea.com with a subject title of “PAYBACK COLLABORATION TRAILER SUBMISSION”

By providing a video, you grant EA all licenses needed to enable EA’s use of the content for any purpose.  EA’s Terms of Service apply.

We look forward to watching the great footage you send in! Be sure to subscribe to the Battlefield YouTube channel to catch the official video once it airs.

The heat of competitive Battlefield gaming has reached Cologne! Some of the world’s best BF4 players have made their way to Gamescom to compete in the ESL One Summer Finals. The 8 qualifying teams will fight it out this Thursday and Friday for €30,000 and immense bragging rights.

The ESL One Summer Finals will take place live on the ESL stage at Gamescom, on August 14-15. The event will be hosted by Paul “ReDeYe” Chaloner and commentated by Lauren “Pansy” Scott, Jason Kaplan, and Alex “Machine” Richardson.

Those who cannot attend Gamescom will be able to watch a live stream of the finals here:

Full schedule, tournament info, and more on the ESL homepage

Battlefield 4 players have always amazed us by pulling off jaw-dropping, out of this world stunts – from the legendary Rendezook to launching their vehicles onto skyscrapers. With the BF4 Stunt Video Competition, we wanted to give some of the most skilled fans an opportunity to shine.

The battle was fierce, but in the end the community chose 3 winning stunt video submissions. The creators of these videos will receive a truly brutal AMD gaming PC for their creative efforts. Congratulations! Enjoy the top 3 stunt videos below:

ponylionHD – “Rendelodon”

CINEMA VIDEO-RECORDING

VideoDeadGaming – “Rendemissile”

See all of the top stunt video submissions