Just like we know another Call of Duty game will be coming, we can always be pretty sure that DICE will be creating another Battlefield game for EA, so it comes as absolutely no surprise that Battlefield 4 has been confirmed via an accidentally placed banner on EA’s Origin service, along with a public beta for the game.

The confirmation came in an advert for EA’s upcoming Medal of Honor: Warfighter under the shooter section in Origin. The banner mentions that anyone who pre-orders Warfighter will gain access to a public beta for Battlefield 4. Now for some speculation regarding when Battlefield 4 might actually be released. EA did pretty much the same thing as this with Battlefield 3, offering beta access to anyone who purchased the Limited Edition of Medal of Honor. Now, Medal of Honor was released in October 2010, but the beta for Battlefield wasn’t held until September of 2011, nearly a year later. Battlefield 3 was released just two-weeks after the beta ended. If Battlefield 4 follows the same logic then we can assume a launch window of September-October. However, hopefully this time around DICE have learned to provide more time between the beta and the launch for incorporating feedback.

Gamers around the internet have already taken to their keyboards to bash EA for announcing a sequel this early, but many of them seem to forgetting that this isn’t an official announcement and that Battlefield 4 will, assuming the above speculation is correct have had two-years, or close to, of developement before its release, which is more than most sequels get these days. Hopefully with that developement time we’ll see a considerably better singleplayer campaign to compliment the awesome multiplayer the series is known for.

The banner revealing Battlefield 4 has since been removed from Origin, having been replaced by an advertisement for Battlefield 4 Premium. So, was this just another gaming screw up, or do you think the leak was quite deliberate?

Either way, I’m a little disappointed that it didn’t show a sequel to Bad Company 2 rather than Battlefield 3. Happily, though, developement of Bad Company 3 was accidentally mentioned earlier this year in a resume, so fingers crossed for that.

Thanks, Jamie, for tipping me off to this story.