In October 2011, we reviewed Battlefield 3 for the Xbox 360, but those of us interested in the game continued to play on with the PC version because the console version was lacking and current-gen systems simply couldn't handle the larger player counts or the graphical prowess of the Frostbite 2 engine.

When doing so, our progress on the console version of the game oddly didn't carry over and upon logging into EA's Origin service, we each had two soldier profiles, one for each platform with their own separate, individual ranks, stats and unlocks. Will this same limitation apply for Battlefield 4?

With literally all of the above-listed information being held on EA's own servers and the game requiring an online connection to function, why couldn't that information - or more importantly - that progress - be shared between the games?

With the next-gen consoles releasing this holiday season and EA's sports titles, along with Battlefield 4, releasing first on current-gen platforms, are early game adopters who are also planning on buying next-gen hardware going to be screwed over? Perhaps not.

EA announced last week that with FIFA 14 Ultimate Team, club items, players, seasons, trophies and coins will be shared on players' Xbox Live or Sony accounts, and that FIFA Points can be transferred (only once) from current to next-gen systems, but not between manufacturers. This is an important and necessary feature for EA to include, and with Origin's always-online requirement for their titles, there's no reason such features shouldn't be included.

With Battlefield 4 however, DICE and EA seem less prepared. They were asked by users frequently via Twitter if they could do the same between current and next-gen platforms for BF4 and issued the following statement:

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They are investigating which leads us to believe the ability to share progress between platforms will be available this fall. We hope it's not as limited as one-time transfers, or only moving from one manufacturer's product to their next. Really, if it's just database information stored online by EA (which it is), we want players to be able to access their progress no matter the platform. It's the same game from the same developer backed by the same EA Origin service (even supporting the same Battlelog 2.0 features), after all. Then again, licensing deals with Microsoft and Sony may prevent cross-platform features.

It's just one potential step towards our probably-never-going-to-happen cross-platform play desires.

Battlefield 4 arrives on October 29th for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and later for PS4 & Xbox One.

Source: EA