Battlefield 4 's first expansion pack, China Rising, will be with Premium players on December 3, Videogamer note. Players who opted for the pricey premium package get the five planned BF4 Xpacks two weeks before general release, which means China Rising should be available for everyone on December 17. It'll add four new maps set in "the vast and majestic Chinese mainland", which will be full of new vehicles and "high-tech military equipment". Please be lasers, please be lasers, please be lasers.
The pack will also be free to those who pre-order, but it's not clear whether they'll get the pack at the same time as Premium people or a couple of weeks later. The five Xpack rollout will be completely familiar to Battlefield 3 players, though the first pack last time round was the nostalgic Back to Karkand, which rebuilt classic maps in Frostbite. BF4's nostalgia pack, Second Assault, will release after China Rising. The remaining three, Naval Strike, Dragon's Teeth and Final Stand, are yet to be detailed, though I think I'd prefer it if DICE rolled those into one DLC episode in which boats stage a final stand against attacking dragons. Call of Duty has aliens now , BF can surely work in a dragon or two.
Battlefield 4 is out now in the US, and will go live on Friday in the UK and Europe. Is it worthy of the 'Battlefield' name? Find out in our Battlefield 4 review .
