It’s good news, then, that Battlefield 3 is about to get a huge new multiplayer mod that has been in active development for seven years and has been produced by over 80 contributors during that time. The long-awaited Battlefield 3: Reality Mod is effectively a follow-up to Battlefield 2’s own Project Reality and follows many of the same design principles to deliver a complete gameplay overhaul with new content to boot.

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While Battlefield 2042 did get some things right, the game itself left much of the franchise’s veteran fans disappointed with the core gameplay loop. From ever-present bugs to a strange lack of content, much of the game’s player base simply didn’t stick around all that long. Battlefield 3’s Reality Mod is, instead, far more in tune with the sort of classic, objective-based Battlefield gameplay that franchise fans had previously come to expect and is set to come out on July 17. Developers of Reality Mod wanted to create a realistic, immersive experience that underlines Battlefield 3’s combined arms combat system.

Since it’s unlikely that Battlefield 3 is being remastered anytime soon, gamers who loved this particular iteration of the franchise may consider signing up for Reality Mod instead. On top of completely reworking the game’s UI and gameplay mechanics, it also features a full 24-hour day and night cycle, completely new content (models, maps, etc.), and supports over 100 players on a single server.

After it became clear that Battlefield 6 wasn’t very inspired by BF3 after all, community projects such as Reality Mod became all the more important. DICE could still arguably turn 2042 around, but that will be a substantial undertaking if it ever does happen, and the end result would still be a total unknown. Since Reality Mod supports both Origin and Steam versions of Battlefield 3, players can simply download the mod and join any of the available servers on July 17 instead.

The rumors of Battlefield 2042 being run by a skeleton crew have already been shot down by EA, but it remains to be seen if the project has been totally soured to the wider Battlefield community already. In the interim, fans of classic Battlefield gameplay have something to look forward to with the Reality Mod.

Battlefield 3 is out now on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Reality Mod will be available on PC.

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