EA now renting out ‘Battlefield 1’ servers for roughly $300 annually

By Mark Coppock Published October 20, 2016

Battlefield 1 review — Image used with permission by copyright holder

For some multiplayer gamers, joining a public server and playing random opponents according to a company’s rules and policies is just fine. For others, however, such constraints are unacceptable, and they would rather have some control over who they’re spending their time with.

Like many other gaming companies, Electronic Arts (EA) offers a solution for the latter type of gamer, with rented servers being available for games like those in the Battlefield series of war-themed first-person shooters. on Wednesday, EA announced pricing for its latest installment, Battlefield 1, and the price for a fully customizable gaming environment will run upwards of $300 each year, as Ars Technical reports.

The information comes via EA’s Battlefield forums, and EA will be providing the actual dedicated servers as opposed to relying on third-party providers as with some past titles. As the company puts it, this will allow it “to secure the quality of the actual hardware … [and] give everyone the same uniform experience.” Given the rash of exploits lately, through which various personal and business information has been released in the wild, EA would likely prefer to remain in control of its own destiny in this regard.

EA is pricing the dedicated servers for Battlefield 1 at a rate that’s considerably less than its pricing for Battlefield 4, which ranged from $600 to $1,000 for a 64-user server environment. For Battlefield 1, pricing ranges from $2 a day for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users to $150 every six months. PC users pay roughly twice those amounts.

EA hasn’t indicated how many players are supported at these rates, but users will be able to control a number of game aspects, including map rotation, game modes, and various gameplay settings such as weapon availability and bullet damage. Customization options will be limited at first, but will be expanded throughout 2016 and in later years.

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