Battlefield Premium and the multiple DLC packs it adds to Battlefield 3 are still fresh in the minds of players, so when Electronic Arts attempted to boost the appeal of Medal of Honor: Warfighter earlier this month by confirming Battlefield 4 via Warfighter pre-order incentives, there was understandably some concern for BF3's long-term future.

According to DICE, Electronic Arts and their official Battlefield blog, fans need not fret. They promise to continue supporting Battlefield 3 all throughout this year and next, and beyond the release of its successor.

In an update last week on the official BF blog, EA clarified some information regarding Battlefield 4 and the next piece of Battlefield 3 DLC coming in September (Armored Kill). They revealed the Armored Kill gameplay trailer and said the following about the Battlefield 4 beta:

• The Beta will be in Fall of 2013.
• We are committed to providing an excellent Battlefield 3 experience well into the future , past the releases of Aftermath, End Game, and Battlefield 4. DICE is continuing its work on Battlefield 3 alongside Battlefield 4.
• Most importantly, official details regarding Battlefield 4 will always be made available on Battlefield.com and here on the Battlefield Blog. We expect that the level of interest in Battlefield 4 will lead to a lot of speculation and rumor — don’t fall for it!

What does "providing an excellent Battlefield 3 experience" post-Battlefield 4 mean? Will be additional DLC? Unlikely. Does it mean there will be more updates? Potentially. Or does it mean they'll just keep servers active for a while? That's probably it.

What they could (read: should) do is open Battlefield 3 up to mod support around the time Battlefield 4 releases. By then all of the Battlefield 3 DLC (including End Game and Aftermath) will have released and sales for BF3 will have dried up. As pointed out in this weekend's Game Ranter Banter, previous games in the series included mod support and it helped Battlefield 1942 immensely. Even now, the user-made DayZ mod has boosted sales for the three-year-old ARMA 2 greatly, and the community can do great things with the Frostbite 2 engine if they could make their own maps, weapons and vehicles for BF3.

DICE’s Magnus Troedsson went on record explaining his desire for more innovation in shooters and allowing for mod support would be a step in that direction. Just think of the viral marketing potential of in-game videos from mods. He did say last year that the studio was considering it as a post-launch possibility, reiterating that they want to do it right if they go down that path. Do it.

Battlefield 3 is currently available on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Medal of Honor: Warfighter releases October 23, 2012. Battlefield 4 releases fall 2013.

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Source: EA