Battlefield 3 is now available and if you're a fan of multiplayer shooters, you should be playing it (read our Battlefield 3 review). For game focused on multiplayer, it surprisingly and somewhat disappointingly only ships with 9 maps, less than its predecessor. We all know what that means: DLC!

For players who pre-ordered Battlefield 3 or was able to nab a Limited Edition copy of the game, free access to the Back to Karkand DLC is granted to them upon release. Until today, we didn't know when that would be.

Back to Karkand is the first DLC add-on for Battlefield 3 and its one designed especially for veteran players of the franchise since its four maps are all fan-favorites from previous games: Strike at Karkand, Wake Island, Gulf of Oman and Sharqi Peninsula.

Today, EA finally shed a little more light on when we can expect the DLC and we now know it's going to arrive in December, after the intense video game slate coming November. Perhaps DICE and EA want to get that out of everyone's system and use the DLC to bring everyone back, especially since a big portion of the user base already has free access to the maps.

Here's what the Back to Karkand DLC comes with:

  • 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.
All of that of course, adds to the 4 maps re-made with the Frostbite 2 engine in mind. Here are a few screenshots of where we'll be battling it out on the Strike at Karkand map, previously seen in Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142 and Battlefield Play4Free:

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We first heard about the pre-order content back in February and it was later revealed in May what the four maps were and that it would be coming with vehicles and weapons. Now we know the vehicles, we just need the precise weapons and an exact day in December.

Battlefield 3 is now available for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

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