Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 features the combined arms battles across single-player, co-operative and multiplayer modes. It reintroduces several elements absent from the Bad Company games, including fighter jets, the prone position and 64-player battles on PC. To accommodate the lower player count on consoles, the ground area is limited for Xbox 360 and PS3, though fly space remains the same.

The game features maps set in Paris, Tehran (as well as other locations in Iran), Sulaymaniyah in Iraq, New York City, Wake Island, Oman, Kuwait City, and other parts of the Persian Gulf. The maps cover urban streets, metropolitan downtown areas, and open landscapes suited to vehicle combat. Battlefield 3 introduces the "Battlelog"; a free cross-platform social service with built-in text messaging, voice communications, game statistics, and the ability to join games that friends are already playing (though both players need to be on the same platform).

In March 2014, U.S. Marine Sergeant Henry Blackburn (Gideon Emery) of the 1st Recon Marines is deployed to Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan with his fellow squadmates Private First Class Jack Chaffin (Tony Denman), Lance Corporals David Montes (Ronan Summers) and Christian Matkovic (William Meredith), Staff Sergeant Steve Campo (Eric Loren), and Captain Quinton Cole (David Harewood), under the squad callsign Misfit 1-3. While on a mission to defuse an IED, Chaffin is wounded in an ambush by the People's Liberation and Resistance (PLR), an Iranian paramilitary group, moments before an earthquake devastates the city, though the squad successfully manages to escape. The next day, the PLR stages a coup d'etat in Iran, causing the United States to launch an invasion.

S. Navy conducts an airstrike on Mehrabad Airport, Misfit is deployed into Tehran to perform battle damage assessment and apprehend the leader of the PLR, Faruk Al-Bashir (Ray Haratian). While investigating an underground bank vault in the target's suspected location, the squad learns that the PLR has acquired Russian suitcase nukes, with two of the three devices missing. Being overrun, Misfit requests backup from an M1 Abrams column, callsign Anvil 3 of the 1st Tank Battalion, including Sergeant Jonathan Miller.

Battlefield 3's lead platform was originally the PC until it was switched to consoles midway through development. The Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 3 is shipped on two discs due to the disc size limit; however, the PS3 version ships on one Blu-ray Disc. It is the first game in the series that does not support versions of Windows prior to Windows Vista as the game only supports DirectX 10 and 11. The PC version was exclusive to EA's Origin platform, through which PC users also authenticate when connecting to the game; however the game eventually arrived on Steam in June 2020.

Battlefield 3 debuts the new Frostbite 2 engine. This updated Frostbite engine can realistically portray the destruction of buildings and scenery to a greater extent than previous versions. Unlike previous iterations, the new version can also support dense urban areas. Battlefield 3 used a new type of character animation technology called ANT that has been used in EA Sports games such as FIFA, but for Battlefield 3 is adapted to create a more realistic soldier, with the ability to transition into cover and turn the head before the body, as well as "drag fallen comrades into safety and mount weapons on almost any part of the terrain". EA stated that Commander Mode was unlikely to be included, which was met with some criticism on the EA forum.

Battlefield 3 received mostly positive reviews. IGN gave it a score of 9.0 out of 10.0 for all platforms, and praised the graphics and multiplayer game, but criticism for the occasional glitches of the game engine, it still gave the game a mostly positive review: "Regardless of the narrative missteps or the occasional glitches, Battlefield 3 offers an unforgettable, world-class multiplayer suite that's sure to excite shooter fans."

Joystiq awarded the game 4.5 out of 5 stars, stating that the campaign was "tactically linear" and that the A.I. within the game were "murderously un-fun to fight". Complaints were also made of the multiplayer aspect, stating that destruction was less than expected: "It's not Bad Company 2, and levels won't start out intact and end looking like the surface of the moon the way they often did in that game." They did, however, praise the multiplayer experience as "unmatched", stating that this should be the sole reason to buy the game.