Trivia / Battlefield 3

• Banned in Iran: As of November 2011, Iran has officially banned the game there. Not only that, but Iranian gamers have made a petition to let EA/DICE apologize over the game's content.
• Defictionalization: A tiny, out of the way newspaper texture in Strike at Karkand has the header for 4chan's video game board on it, along with "Why haven't you got a girlfriend yet" (a typical /v/ post) underneath. For about a week after this was discovered, /v/ had that exact text on the top of every page.
• Dueling Games:
  • Explicitly set up and marketed by Electronic Arts to take on Call of Duty. The tagline for Battlefield 3 is "Above and Beyond the Call".
  • Also, BF3 was used by EA to tout its new Origin online service, which was a pretty blatant attempt to compete with Valve's Steam service.
  • There are also parallels between Battlelog and Call of Duty Elite. Both are game-centric social networks, with features such as clan organization and stat tracking. There's even Battlefield Premium, which is like Call of Duty Elite Premium.
  • The Close Quarters DLC seems like it is really taking the fight up close to Modern Warfare 3, since the Battlefield series usually focuses on very large maps and long range warfare, as opposed to the Call of Duty series, which focuses on smaller maps. The Close Quarters DLC, as the name suggests, focuses on indoor fights in tightly packed places.
• Fake American: Americans Henry Blackburn and Quinton Cole are voiced by English actors Gideon Emery and David Harewood respectively.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Very early rumored reports for 3 had 40-on-40 player teams, used the Bad Company engine, actual character customization (like choosing camo patterns and helmet types), and bringing back pilotable large naval vessels (only present in 1942). Some content like unique paint jobs for firearms and new camo suits have been added, though only for Premium members.
  • Original pitches of the game would have been essentially a "better Battlefield 2" which would have expanded on its predecessor in many more ways tactically. There would have also been the return of the Middle Eastern Coalition, as seen in BF2.
  • It could be implied that the PLR were to be a playable faction within the Multiplayer, given that there are a few maps set during the US-Iranian war with the added expansion showing Technicals and Improvised vehicles in an earthquake. This is reinforced by the fact that a drivable Technical can be found in the mission "Night Shift".
  • An early casting call for the game mentioned a character named Joseph, who was described as being a "shadowy international terrorist with fatalistic philospohical leanings" who had dual citizenship between Lebanon and the United States. Due to the description matching between these two characters, it's possible that Joseph was an early version of Solomon.

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