Another seasonal update, another free map coming to fans of Battlefield 4. As it were, some time last year, DICE LA conducted a survey of all who were interested of maps people would like to see remade into Battlefield 4. There were a few caveats: can't be a map newer than one featured in Battlefield 2142, it can't have been remade in other games, and it should be a unique map with multiple fronts and avenues for gameplay. Though some disagreed with the results, we ended up getting Dragon Valley, from Battlefield 2, as our winning map.

Much work has been done to the map to update it for the Battlefield 4 experience. There is now a low-hanging dynamic cloud layer, meaning that dogfights will happen above the clouds, something I believe is a Battlefield first. There's also the challenge of draw distance, as it was limited in Battlefield 2. DICE LA has worked around this by increasing the verticality of the map to closer mimic a real Chinese river valley, which also gives them the ability to implement terrain occlusion at far distances.

This all comes on the back of the news that DICE LA is not going to support this map on the Xbox 360 and PS3. That doesn't mean they'll be getting the Winter Update, but because of the demands of the map, it simply doesn't make sense to devote resources anymore to aging consoles. If you'll recall from my news post about the Night Operations update, two other maps were to be included with that patch, but both the Xbox 360 and PS3 don't support dynamic lighting, and thus, held off on two of the maps' release. With this news, we might see a night-time Siege of Shanghai and Golmud Railway released. Stay tuned for more news on the upcoming Winter Patch for Battlefield 4.