Four of the best Battlefield maps of all time are going to be completely redone for the upcoming Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand DLC. Â Of the fan favorites, Wake Island which originated in Battlefield 1942, will be one of those maps included in the content which comes with all pre-orders of Limited Edition of the game. Â In a recent post on the Battlefield Blog, one of the developers talks about the task at hand in re-creating one of the most popular maps in the franchise.
It’s a weird mix of pressure in staying true to the heritage of Wake Island, while at the same time having new and exciting possibilities thanks to the Frostbite 2 engine.  I feel that we have a shot at making our own unique interpretation of Wake Island. The map has seen so many iterations through so many games that we don’t feel constrained by some hard-coded template of what it must be.
The basic premise was that we looked at how real-life Wake Island [from the Pacific Theatre in WWII] looks today. We knew we couldn’t do it to scale, but that kind of one-to-one fidelity wasn’t really of interest to us. Funny thing is, it was in fact downscaled so much due to a decimal error in programming. The map was originally meant to be bigger, but the involuntary downsizing created a very cool and concentrated gaming experience.
That concentration also comes from the fact that when fighting on land, because of the island’s U-shape, you cannot escape. If there’s a tank in your way, you will have to confront it head-on sooner or later. That’s something we have tried to recreate throughout the Battlefield series: To have some kind of clear frontline.
The Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand expansion is being developed by the same team that worked on Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s Vietnam expansion. Â The content includes four classic Battlefield maps, as well as unique vehicles, weapons, and unlockables. Â To get the pack when the game launches this fall, you’ll need to pre-order the Battlefield 3: Limited Edition.
