User blog:Apprentice125/January News Roundup - Getaway, Competitive Matchmaking, Event Schedules

Welcome to January, here's hoping your new year is off to a good start! Battlefield news is pretty minimal for the beginning of the year, with the main points being Battlefield Hardline: Getaway releasing next week, and development on the 2016 Battlefield title confirmed to be underway at DICE Stockholm. Let's get to it!

Battlefield Hardline: Getaway Releasing January 2016
The third paid expansion for Battlefield Hardline, Getaway, will be releasing for Premium members next week on January 12, 2016. Getaway 's  focus is, as you can guess, pulling off the perfect getaway after the heist, featuring four new high-speed vehicles and large, expansive maps catering to vehicle and foot chases.

Expansion owners will have access to three new SMGs and the RF Jammer for the Mechanic kit, while all players will receive nine new weapons and access to new Competitive Match system, more on that below. For a better taste of what's coming, take a look at Getaway 's  cinematic launch trailer. Getaway will be available for purchase two weeks after the Premium release on January 26.

Competitive Matchmaking Coming to Hardline
Battlefield Hardline will also be getting a competitive matchmaking system with the release of Getaway, and will be a free feature for all players. The system, named Competitive Match, allows players to compete in "skill-based 5v5 matches" of Crosshair and Rescue, with regularly refreshed seasons, leaderboards, and winners. Competitive play will take place during seasons two to three weeks in length, and each season will have a themed map or mode rotation picked out by Visceral.

Similar to the system present in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, players will receive a skill ranking based off their performance in competitive matches, from the rank of Cadet to the top-ranking Elite Gold Captain. Two leagues will be available: Standard, which is open to all players, and an exclusive Premium league. The standard league will feature stock maps and gamemodes, while Premium will include maps and modes from the expansions.

Competitive matchmaking has been something in development for the Battlefield series for a little while now, having been a feature requested by the community for Hardline at its launch, and a rough version of a competitive matchmaking system was tested earlier last year on the Battlefield 4 CTE. Given the smaller playerbase of Hardline, it probably won't be seeing too much action past the first few months, and with BF4's future support a bit sketchy at the moment, the Competitive Match system probably won't be coming to Battlefield 4, but could potentially appear in the new Battlefield game coming this year.

2016 Battlefield Game in Further Development
As previously reported last month, Dan Vaderlind, the development director at DICE Stockholm, tweeted that he's moved to work on the next Battlefield game now that Star Wars: Battlefront has shipped.

The development of the next core Battlefield title has been confirmed several times in the past couple years, and has been confirmed to be a return to the game's military-shooter roots following Hardline. The significance of Vaderlind's tweet, however, is that it is the first time someone from DICE has confirmed that they are working on the game, and with Star Wars: Battlefront now out it can be assumed more of DICE Stockholm's team has probably switched over to working on the new game along with Vaderlind. We'll probably be seeing a full announcement regarding the game sometime early this year, so be sure to keep an eye out.

January Events Schedule
Fresh off of releasing Legacy Operations and with Getaway coming next week, the events schedules for Battlefield 4 and Hardline are rather sparse this month, but there are still a few Community Missions coming up to work at. As always, each Friday is #FridayNightBattlefield and each Saturday is #SaturdayNightHardline, so ready those knives and check the official Battlefield Twitter account to find out which servers you can join on these days to play aganist Battlelog moderators, Answers HQ members, and Battlefield community team members.

Battlefield 4

 * January 5 – January 11 - Zodiac Mission: Capricorn - Get 4 C4 kills to earn the Capricorn dogtag!
 * January 21 – January 24 - Expert Community Mission: Revives - Revive 50 players and unlock a Gold Battlepack!
 * January 26 – January 30 - Community Mission: MTAR-21 - Score 21 kills with the MTAR-21 and receive a Gold Battlepack!

Battlefield Hardline

 * January 12 - Getaway Release and Game Update - Getaway will be available to all Premium members along with a Premium Battlepack. All players will also receive a base game update that will add nine new weapons and the Competitive Match system.
 * January 12 – 18 - Community Mission: 50 M110K5 Kills - Get 50 kills with the M110K5 and earn $200,000 in-game cash!
 * January 19 - Premium Members: Premium Shape Bundle - Premium members will receive an exclusive emblem shape bundle.
 * January 21 – 24 - Expert Community Mission: 93 RO933 Kills - Get 93 RO933 kills an receive a Gold Battlepack!
 * January 28 – February 1 - Premium Double XP Weekend - Premium members will receive Double XP for all Ranked and Official matches played over the weekend.

That'll be all for now, make it a great year everyone! See you on the Battlefield! -21:14, January 9, 2016 (UTC)