In what is perhaps a sign that things are finally running more smoothly for DICE, the Swedish dev’s postponed double XP event for Battlefield 4 Premium subscribers is now officially live. The event launched at 8am EST on Friday, January 3, and it will run until 6pm ET on Sunday, January 5.
The event was supposed to have kicked off on December 30 and then run through the New Year’s break, but it was ultimately delayed due to “intermittent connectivity issues” that still plagued the game on the day double XP was set to begin. This came after a pre-Christmas patch that was supposed to fix the worst of the game-breaking bugs that have kept many players from having a stable experience in online play.
In order to participate in the double XP event, you’ll need a BF4 Premium subscription. The $49.99 purchase is DICE’s take on a Season Pass, and you get a whole bunch of extras in addition to the discount pre-purchased downloadable content drops. These include Battlepacks (containing a random assortment of weapon attachments, time-limited XP boosts, and other goodies), access to double XP events like this one, and Premium-only cosmetic enhancements for your in-game soldier and player profile. DICE also has another Premium double XP event set to kick off on January 27. You can still play BF4 online without a Premium subscription, you just won’t receive any double XP benefits.
That said, non-subscribers may want to hold off on nabbing Premium for just a bit longer. There’s still been no update from DICE on when work will resume on BF4‘s planned DLC drops, or how the development delay will impact the map pack release schedule. Early in December, DICE and publisher Electronic Arts announced that it would be discontinuing work on all projects – including BF4 DLC – while the game’s myriad issues were smoothed out.
Until DICE makes an announcement filling in a few details, it’s reasonable to expect more delays in the DLC schedule. If that pushes the content releases further out than one year after the game’s initial launch, questions about how much of the community will still be playing start to surface. Will BF4 players still be on board once online-focused lookers like Titanfall and Destiny (and whatever else that hasn’t been announced yet) enter the mix?
