Just one year past its initial release, Battlefield 1 continues to be a big hit for Electronic Arts, with millions of fans still enjoying its solid single player campaign and robust multiplayer. But now, they’ve got something even more to soak in, as DICE has announced that some of the game’s premium downloadable content will be free to play.
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The developer recently took to Reddit to announce that select Operations available in the game are being offered for free to everyone. Lead gameplay designer Alex Sulman explained that any Operation included with Fire & Ice, along with any future Operation Campaigns, will be available for all players, and not just those that purchase DLC like They Shall Not Pass and In the Name of the Tsar.
“This has proven to be quite a technical challenge as we have many different ‘licenses’ you can have depending on whether you are a Premium Pass owner, or own individual standalone expansions. This challenge presented two options: continue to configure Operation Campaigns to be exclusively for Premium Pass owners, as with ‘Eastern Storm’, or to not require Premium Pass at all, as with ‘Fall of Empires’,” Sulman explained.
“One of the primary goals for Operation Campaigns was to rally as many players as we can around content to ensure the servers are as full as possible. We have seen tremendous success with the first two Campaigns in this regard, so moving forward we are making the following change. Starting with ‘Fire & Ice’, Operation Campaigns will be open to all players, always, regardless of the Operations contained. Yes, that means if you have only the base version of Battlefield 1 you will still be able to play Operations that are part of expansions you do not own. Please note the following:
- These maps are only accessible in the Operations mode
- You will not have the weapons, vehicles, or Elites that exist in the corresponding expansions / maps
- You will only be able to access the Operations that are part of the active Campaign i.e. they will change every two weeks as the Operations rotate
“Our goal here is to ensure the best chance at the most populated servers we can. We feel opening up the content to all players is the best way to do this. Of course the most complete way to experience this content remains via the Premium Pass which ensures you can play with all of the toys on all of the maps whenever you want.
“With regards to other changes, we have reduced the total amount of points required per Operation from 30,000 to 25,000 to help reduce the time investment required and increase the chance at completing an Operation in one go. We will be monitoring this change closely to see if this new score sits at a more appropriate level.”
He concluded, “We hope you enjoy the return of Operation Campaigns today and please keep the constructive feedback coming to help direct our areas of focus.”
Battlefield 1 is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
