EA Games has announced this last Thursday that they will be releasing a new, "lite" version of Battlefield 2142.

"We have listened to gamers' concerns," said Patrick Söderlund, head manager at Digital Illusions CE, "and have been working hard these past months on delivering the definitive gaming experience. We have been working hard on the Battlefield series, everyone knows this, we are king of the hill in this department, and we will not let go of it. We will keep working hard for the players."

DICE has furthermore revealed some of the details of the game, most notably the update and transfer of all graphical content to the new Frostbite engine. A number of fixes to game physics and mechanics are also reported to have been worked on, including measures to make jumps more realistic and prevent bunnyhopping, along with the ability for players to throw some pieces of their equipment, rather than simply drop it at their feet.

"We've gotten several E-Mails concerning the use of the engineer's motion mines," Söderlund continued, "and we believe it to be a good extension of gaming physics to allow engineers to throw the motion mine at the best of their strength, in order to reach ledges above, or as a sort of anti-tank grenade."

Söderlund has further added that the same could be performed on RDX demopacks in a shorter-ranged replacement to grenades, or as an airburst maneuver by experienced players.

The new Battlefield 2142 will be solely distributed through EA Link and is expected to weigh in at a paltry 200 MB - a small amount considering today's demo is substantially larger than this. At $8.95, Battlefield 2142 Lite is aimed at more casual online players who do not feel that they would have the time to pour effort into a normal, full-fledged game. As such, some less useful unlocks have been removed from the kits in order to speed up the ranking-up process. Among them are the much hated SAAW 86 Anti-Air rocket launcher, and the Support IPS Shield.

Söderlund concluded with the suggestion that the lightened selection of unlocks should provide an easier and more friendly environment to the player, by contributing to a more uniform style of play and avoid situations of players frustratingly finding themselves with the wrong unlock at the wrong time.

A sample of the Battlefield 2142 Lite box art has been released and is viewable on DICE's website:




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