Battlefield 3 beta unlocks Caspian Border

DICE is unlocking the gargantuan Caspian Border map in time for this weekend - for PC players only.

The developer wants to stress test the map one last time - this weekend marks the end of the Battlefield 3 beta.

"After analysing the data from our first round of closed Caspian Border tests, we have great news for participants in the Battlefield 3 PC Open Beta: the DICE team has decided to bring back Caspian Border for the beta's final weekend and conduct an open large scale test of the 64-player Caspian Border map," wrote Battlefield 3 North American community manager Ian Tornay, aka "crash7801", on the Battlelog forum.

He stressed that the beta is designed to test the shooter's servers - and does not reflect the finished game.

"Please keep in mind that as this is beta we will be stress testing our servers. As such, users may experience crashes, network instability and outages as we roll out and configure servers and network utilities.

"Understand that such potential issues and the testing environment are not reflective or indicative of the final product and that, through your participation, you will be helping to ensure future stability and functionality.

"As we are again specifically testing 64-player server configurations, this test will be for PC only. The Caspian Border servers will be available for all PC players to join. Caspian Border will be available starting Friday, October 7th, in the afternoon (CET)."

Why is Caspian Border unlocked only on PC? "Caspian Border isn't in the client file for PS3 and console unfortunately," Tornay explained.

Elsewhere, DICE staffer Bazajaytee confirmed the Swedish developer is putting more than ten servers live for Caspian Border. These will be worldwide, "so you should see ones close to you so you get a good connection to them".

Then: "Servers will be at multiple providers and worldwide with no password and the only limit is securing your place in the server :)"

"We have been discussing opening Caspian Border since before the BETA even started but initially we had to get data from full servers and it also uncovered other issues we hadn't accounted for so it was a successful test all round."

"Servers are starting to come online, please don't spam the connect button on the servers that are up. The RSP's are adding more, LOTS MORE, over the next few hours."

And finally: "We are aware of a number of bugs in Caspian Border including vehicle flipping when it hits things and end of round crashes. Remember, it is still a BETA and the main test we are doing is finding what performance 64 player maps with vehicles in use has on the RSP's machines and our own systems."