The accidental announcement on EA’s Origin service
After the leak via EA’s Origin service at the weekend, Battlefield 4 has been officially announced by the publisher. The game will have an exclusive beta for those who pre-order Medal of Honor Warfighter Limited Edition which will be released in October. The beta is due to start in Autumn 2013, giving plenty of time for EA to release all the planned DLC for Battlefield 3 before moving on to promotion of Battlefield 4.
Not the official game title!
The announcement may point to a release strategy by EA which will mean direct competition with Activision’s Call of Duty franchise. It appears that for the next two years at least, EA will have a shooter to release around the same time as the next installment of Call of Duty. In 2012, Medal of Honor Warfighter will be released alongside Call of Duty Black Ops 2, and based on the timing of the Battlefield 4 beta, in 2013 we may see Battlefield 4 release against Call of Duty as it did in 2011.
This is of course unconfirmed, but does seem likely given the early announcement of the Battlefield 4 beta.