It looks like it is going to be a busy few days for Xbox 360 owners who are still playing Battlefield 3. The highly anticipated End Game DLC expansion is out this week as well for Premium members, and DICE has just sent out word that a massive patch update is needed to accomodate it.

This update isn’t a mandatory install, but DICE has said that they ‘strongly advise everyone to download it’. The 1.92GB download is going to take a while to complete, but will provide the groundwork for the End Game content for those looking to play over the weekend.

We’ve seen this in the past with massive updates prior to the release of Armored Kill, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to regular BF3 fans. However, some of you who are not planning to play End Game may be a little annoyed that this patch is being pushed onto you regardless.

Just to remind you, End Game will add dirt bikes into the game, along with the four new maps – Kiasar Railroad, Operation Riverside, Nebandan Flats and Sabalan Pipeline. There’s also going to be two new game modes to play on, Air Superiority and Capture the Flag which should breath a new lease of life into the multiplayer as we all wait for Battlefield 4 details to drop.

The patch shouldn’t be a problem for the majority of gamers, but those still rocking a 20GB system may raise an eyebrow at the near 2GB file size. Let us know if you have already installed this, and your thoughts on these additional large installs on top of the initial DLC content downloads.

We have some good news for Battlefield 3 players now, especially for those with a Premium account and the PS3 version. EA has finally revealed the last DLC expansion pack before Battlefield 4, with End Game due to release first on PS3 at some point next month.

A premiere trailer has now been released for End Game, providing the very first solid gameplay on the new maps, also confirming that four new maps are on the way and another confirmation that dirt bikes will be added to the vehicle list. As revealed in the video, the four End Game maps will be Kiasar Railroad, Operation Riverside, Nebandan Flats and Sabalan Pipeline.

Each map is set in a different environment, with Sabalan Pipeline offering players another snow-themed map which should please a lot of you. Aside from the addition of dirt bikes, there’s also going to be some maps with support for choppers and jets, so it won’t all be infantry based combat as we perhaps saw with Aftermath.

Along with the new maps, there’s also going to be two new multiplayer modes to play, called Capture the Flag and Air Superiority, with the latter sounding pretty interesting. If you played Tank Superiority on Armored Kill, it should give you a basic idea of what to expect – 24 jet maps have apparently been confirmed already, with teams of 12 on each team fighting over three strategic air capture points.

The shot of the dirtbikes launching into the air looks particularly epic, so it looks like End Game is going to be well worth the wait and will give a whole new meaning to getting to a spawn point first before the enemy team. Check out the footage above and let us know your initial impressions of End Game.

Will this keep you busy until the Battlefield 4 beta later on this year?

Are you still heavily addicted to Battlefield 3? The game has been out for well over a year now and we’ve now reached the point where EA has released the fourth DLC expansion pack called Aftermath. There’s one more pack left to go which you know will be called End Game and we have some of the first details to share with you, including confirmation of further new vehicles to try out and also the return of a popular multiplayer mode as well.

The game may have released in October 2011, but there are bound to be thousands of gamers who prefer to get their BF3 fix, rather than playing newer shooters such as Black Ops 2. The DLC content releases have been slow for the DICE developed game, but the content released has been substantial and the beauty of the varied BF gameplay always ensures that each battle is a new experience every time you enter the map.

End Game looks to be the final curtain call on a very successful game and will provide gamers with their last piece of official content before the likes of Battlefield 4 arrives, which has already confirmed to be in development with a beta planned next year and access already confirmed for those who picked up a copy of Medal of Honor Warfighter.

Four new maps will be available in End Game, although the names haven’t been revealed just yet. What has been confirmed though is the addition of a dropship, which will provide support to ground troops by being able to drop vehicles from the skies, as noted by CVG. Don’t forget that this will be coming after the addition of the Gunship in Armored Kill, which aside from providing air weapony, it also served as a mid-air spawn point letting troops parachute undetected into nearby conquest points.

The other big change in End Game will see the return of Capture the Flag, which Battlefield veterans will fondly remember from BF 1942. The game mode allows two teams to slug it out for possession of the flag, with the bearer having to race back to the base to score the point for his or her team – obviously a difficult task with both ground and air troops trying to stop that from happening.

We wondered when Capture the Flag will be coming back and it’s great to see that DICE has saved it till last. What are your thoughts on the state of the game at the moment? Are you enjoying Aftermath, because from what we gather, a lot of gamers preferred Armored Kill much more.

While many Battlefield 3 fans haven’t been too impressed with what Back to Karkand, Close Quarters and Armored Kill has offered, we have to say that we’ve loved every expansion released so far and can’t wait to get our hands on Aftermath at the end of next month.

Aftermath is going to include another four multiplayer maps and we can reveal to you that they’ll be called Epicenter, Markaz Monolith, Saadi Palace and Telemarket. There won’t be a huge focus on vehicle based gameplay like Armored Kill, but there will be three new vehicles to try out: the Phoenix, the Rhino and the Barsuk.

As with each release, there will be brand new assignments to work through and this time instead of unlocking vehicle items, you’ll be back unlocking new weapons to use, one of which has already been confirmed as the crossbow. Fans have been praying for a crossbow weapon to be added for a long time and not for the first time, DICE has answered those prayers by adding it into the game and hopefully into all of the base maps and modes as well.

Aftermath is not due out until November 27 for PS3 Premiums and December 4th for Xbox 360 Premiums, but we have two excellent gameplay teasers to give you a general feel of the new gameplay environment after Armored Kill. The first is the premiere trailer, but the second is a nice insight from producer Craig Mcleod mixed in with unseen gameplay footage and a few lovely crossbow kills.

What are your general impressions of Aftermath after playing Alborz Mountains, Bandar Desert, Death Valley and Armored Shield for so long? Are you happy that the focus has gone back to urban maps? We can’t wait for this to drop – stay tuned to PR for further Aftermath updates as we get them.

That be said, we can’t really fault Armored Kill for the moment as the new maps and vehicles pour hours of new fun into the game – we just wish the mobile artillery wasn’t so hard to use. From our experience it remains the most popular vehicle in Armored Kill, with every player rushing out of spawn to try and be the first person to use it.

If you have managed some success with the vehicle already and have unlocked the proximity defense, you may have experienced a rather annoying problem during usage. When deploying the proximity smoke from the artillery, you’ll find that rather than kill the suicide C4 bombers that approach you, the smoke will actually end up killing you instead, leaving an easy steal for the opponent.

Frankly, we’re amazed that DICE never tested this bug before releasing Armored Kill in the first place, but nevertheless you’ll be pleased to hear that a patch is going out before the end of this week, or early next week that will sort out the problem for good.

Other fixes expected in the update include a increased timer for when the Gunship respawns in Rush. Some of you have been complaining to DICE that it’s too hard for the defending team with the current set up, and DICE has listened. The Gunship will now respawn after 90 seconds, instead of the current 60 seconds in a move to make gameplay more balanced.

There we have it folks. Have you experienced any other problems with Armored Kill on PS3 that we should know about? The new content becomes available for PC and Xbox 360 premiums this week – have fun!

Unfortunately, it appears that even DICE doesn’t even know though, as they have been responding to questions on their official Twitter account stating that there ‘isn’t an official release time’ for Armored Kill.

It’s a bit odd since DICE should roughly have a time themselves when they want the pack to go live, but at the moment they are just redirecting all release time questions to their official website for more information.

Aside from Armored Kill landing, there is also another huge patch coming to accomodate the new content. It also makes significant changes to the base game and there’s definitely some big talking points that is likely to affect the way you next play the game.

For example, they are no longer giving the chopper gunner flares to use, as they believe it is too difficult for soldiers on the ground to lock on with two sets of flares deploying each time. We welcome this change as it makes it a lot more easier to get a successful lock on, while at the same time, making the chopper pilot work even harder to ensure he or she flies low enough to avoid lock ons while their flares recharge.

The other big change that we can see is that they have given a much needed update to the scout helicopters. Now the 4th seat of the scout choppers will act as a CITV station, allowing teammates to lock on to targets using a laser designator – providing they have unlocked it for the scout helicopter first. This is an excellent move by DICE in our opinion as it allows the passengers to help the pilot out a lot more, rather than just bailing as soon as you’ve been hit.

As expected, there is the usual multitude of weapon fixes too – some you’ll be happy about, others not so much we expect. The popular M16A3 has now been given increased recoil to make it less overpowered, while the M5K has had a much needed damage increase too, which hopefully should make players use the weapon a lot more.

Mobile AA vehicles have been tweaked yet again, with DICE this time saying they were ‘overnerfed’ last time. They’ll now do increased damage to infantry again, while you’ll be pleased to hear that the damage against tanks has also been increased as well.

At the time of writing, both the Armored Kill pack and the Multiplayer update 4 are not live on the PlayStation 3 yet – we’ve checked the Asia and US PlayStation Stores. Are you a little disappointed that DICE has said that ‘there isn’t an official release time’? It essentially means that we could be waiting a long time yet until the pack drops. How hard would it have been to give an estimated period at least?

As we wait for Armored Kill to land for PS3 Premiums, let us know your thoughts on this new patch update which is live today across all platforms. The full patch notes are on Battlelog here.

If you have the game on Xbox 360 or PS3, you’ll know that this has been a massive problem over the last few months, with official servers being transformed into a multitude of custom servers running their own settings and effectively eliminating the official ones from the game.

DICE had insisted that it was still possible to find official servers in the game, but the community felt otherwise. Right now, the only servers you’ll find on console are custom ones, but it appears DICE and EA have given into the pressure and have decided to put some official servers back into the game.

According to the Battlefield Blog, the changes have already been implemented, so it’s a good idea to head into game and see if you now spot official servers coming up in the server filter. DICE has said that they have ‘quadrupled’ the amount of official servers in the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of the game, so you should now find at least four servers available.

You’ll still need to be careful when jumping into a quick game though, as it is very likely that you will still be put into a ranked custom server despite the change. No longer will you now have to put up with being kicked from a server for ‘being too good’, while those of you who just want the vanilla map rotation and ticket numbers should be delighted with the change as well.

There’s a lot of issues still ongoing with Battlefield 3, but let’s hope this positive action by DICE will be the first of others to come. If you are not a fan of custom servers on console, let us know your thoughts on DICE ‘quadrupling’ official server support.

What updates would you like to see next more importantly?

Last month players had some new assignments to work towards which unlocked some new weapon camos for certain guns. This time though, there won’t be any in-game unlocks and you may feel slightly hard done by in terms of bonus content.

Having said that, the content on offer isn’t exactly terrible though. DICE are giving premium owners the chance to see some brand new exclusive footage from the upcoming Armored Kill expansion. The video will be going live on August 29 and you’ll find it in the video section on Battlelog when the date arrives.

Last month we had a premium strategy guide which gave users a detailed insight into how to master Close Quarters and this time DICE is releasing some ‘exclusive’ concept art which DICE say have never been shown to the public before. The art booklet will be in electronic form like the strategy guide, so you’ll be able to save it to your computer and store for future viewing.

Last but not least, there are two premium events that are also taking place before the end of the month. The first is a standard double XP event which starts this weekend, while the second gives you the opportunity to pitch your ‘best map’ idea to DICE for a chance of winning a signed limited edition Battlefield 3 lithograph.

The double XP weekend is a little different from other times though, as you can extend the duration of the event by liking the following page on Facebook. That’s it for the August content – how do you feel with this month’s drops Premium members? Would you have liked to see more assignments and more camos to unlock in game?

It does feel like a tame update, but we’re guessing that DICE will be making up for it when early access to Armored Kill arrives at the start of next month. View the full updates here.

This isn’t the news that current Premium owners want to hear. After a legion of fans forked out $50 to support developers DICE and EA with additional content for the game, EA are essentially shoving that loyalty right back in their faces by confirming that the Premium Edition will cost $69.99 – $20 more than the $50 that Premium users paid.

While Premium owners probably have a right to be a little aggrieved over this, there’s no denying that this is a fantastic opportunity for those that haven’t had the chance to experience Battlefield 3 yet. For that price, you’ll be getting the main game plus a subscription to Premium, which means instant access to Back to Karkand and Close Quarters, as well as future early access to Armored Kill, Aftermath and End Game when they release.

This will divide opinion for sure, as some will feel like EA were always going to do this, while others will believe that EA are turning into Capcom day after day. On a more pleasing note though, EA has released a new gameplay trailer to coincide with the Premium Edition, and it includes some unseen gameplay for Armored Kill.

During the video we get a first look at a brand new night map which looks absolutely fantastic, while there’s even a brief teaser of the Aftermath expansion right at the end of the video as well. Lucky attendees of GamesCom this week have the chance to try out Armored Kill already, but for everyone else it is releasing next month.

What are your thoughts on this $70 Premium Edition? Do you feel a bit angry having paid $50 for it, when new buyers can essentially get Battlefield Premium for $20?

GTA V, meet Battlefield 3. This unlikely pairing between Rockstar’s adventure game and EA’s immensely popular shooter has been created by YouTube user Ketegano15 and attempts to recreate the infamous GTA V trailer using Battlefield 3′s graphics and soliders.

Although this is somewhat random, you have to say that the creativity factor that has gone into this video is pretty astounding. Watch as the subtle lounge music plays over maps such as caspian border and gulf of oman – pay particular notice to the stunning GTA-esque visual at 0.18 where we see a speedboat go under one of tunnel’s featured on BF3′s Noshahr Canals map.

At 0.40 we see a BF3 soldier looking down at the lovely environment below him. If you’ve watched the GTA V trailer, you’ll know that this scene is a recreation of a certain suited man striking the exact same pose in Rockstar’s trailer. While GTA V has a plane flying over the city, in this trailer we see a jet flying over a group of soliders on caspian border.

Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think of it. Have you seen any other brilliant recreations of GTA V that have been inspired by other games? Suddenly the wait for GTA V doesn’t feel so bad with videos like this to watch.