Battlefield 3 on Xbox 360: optional texture pack explained

Last week it was revealed that Battlefield 3 for the Xbox 360 would be a bit different from the PlayStation 3 and PC versions: the Xbox 360 version of the game will be shipping with a second disk that contains an optional hi-res texture pack for people who want the game to look better on the console. For those of you who were puzzled by the incident, the folks over at GamerZine managed to catch up with Battlefield 3’s executive producer, Patrick Bach, to get to the bottom of the situation. It turns out that there’s a simple explanation for this.

The reason that the textures will come in a separate disc is because some gamers have Xbox 360 consoles that don’t feature a hard drive, and in order to experience the game in glorious HD detail, they will need that extra space to load the hi-res textures. So instead of reducing the game’s quality for all Xbox 360 gamers, they decided to pack the extra textures onto a separate disc instead.

There’s no telling if it affects game performance (i.e. frame rates), but this should also mean that gamers with a hard disk and don’t care too much for graphics will be able to play the game with the low-res textures. Of course Bach recommends that users install the optional texture pack if they are able to because it’s said to make a whole world of difference. Battlefield 3 goes on sale next week, October 25^th – who already has a copy reserved?

George Wong
Categories: Gaming
Tags: battlefield, battlefield 3, dice, EA, Xbox 360