It's been over a month since EA and DICE's impressive looking shooter released and soon, the first DLC for Battlefield 3 will release. Titled 'Back to Karkand,' the Battlefield 3 content adds more than just maps, but vehicles, weapons and more.

The four new locations are remakes of fan-favorite maps from the series so far and include: Strike at Karkand, Wake Island, Gulf of Oman and Sharqi Peninsula. We've seen the exciting Back to Karkand trailer and now, we have a new gameplay trailer specfically showcasing the Gulf of Oman map.

Back to Karkand adds the STOVL fighter jet (it hovers!), desert buggy and an APC, vehicles that should be familiar to Battlefield 2 players. The trailer places emphasis on these new combat rides while also teasing a fourth, "classified" vehicle. Take a look and see for yourself:

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A small bulldozer? That may prove even more popular than the game's first hover-capable fighter jet.

What's more impressive are how complex and intense combat scenarios can become when players work as a team and utilize vehicles appropriately. With the STOVL, we hope that airplanes have more effective use in ground battles since they've proven not to be to useful so far in multiplayer, relative to other vehicles.

Along with the maps and vehicles, Back to Karkand also adds quite a few new weapons along with the appropriate in-game awards.

  • Five new dog tags.
  • Five new achievements/trophies.
  • Three new vehicles (DPV, BTR-90, F-35B STOVL jet fighter).
  • 10 iconic Battlefield weapons
  • A new persistence system where players complete assignments to earn their rewards.

There's oddly still no release date for the DLC and perhaps that's for DICE to work out more of the game's bugs before expanding on the game's content. Last week saw a new Battlefield 3 patch but it didn't include some of the fixes they previously mentioned would be coming (i.e. Taclight effectiveness reduction). Ian Tornay, EA Community Manager for Battlefield 3, took to Reddit to explain features that DICE is aware of and are working on for the future. Some of them however, really should have been built in to the game from the beginning but others are fan requests which we love to see.

  • In-game VOIP
  • Various nerfs including Taclight
  • Changes to chat window (size, positioning)
  • Additional changes to squad interface, including the ability to make squads.
  • Beep beeps.
  • Squad and in-game interface changes (mostly revolving around the proposed fan-designed interface).
  • TV Missiles — definitely known.
  • Spectator/Battlerecorder - Another very popular request.

What vehicle(s) would you like to see added to the game and what missing features need to be added still?

The Battlefield 3 Back to Karkand expansion releases sometime in December for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. It's free to those who pre-orders and $14.99 for those who did not.

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