In true Battlefield fashion, Electronic Art’s plans for community testing didn’t just get announced—they got leaked first.

Over the weekend, the publisher told players to tune in on 3 February at 11:00 PM GMT+8 (5:00 PM CET/8:00 AM PDT) for details on a new Battlefield testing program. But one sharp-eyed Reddit user got ahead of them, discovering an in-game message in Battlefield 4 that spilt the beans earlier than EA probably intended.

Saw this after booting up BF4, looks like the announcement got added to this game a little early
byu/milo301109 inBattlefield

EA has since made it official, unveiling Battlefield Labs, a closed-testing initiative where players can help shape the next Battlefield. They even threw in a whole 10 seconds of pre-alpha gameplay—because, clearly, that’s all we deserve for now.

According to EA, Battlefield Labs is an “exclusive testing environment” where selected players will get their hands dirty with new features and mechanics. The goal? To tweak core gameplay, refine balancing, and—let’s be honest—see how fast players can break everything.

“This is an unprecedented moment for Battlefield,” EA says, because apparently, letting players test the game before launch wasn’t something they’d thought of before. They’ll start by fine-tuning gunplay, destruction, and how well things explode (critical, obviously). Then, they’ll move on to balancing weapons, vehicles, and gadgets before tweaking game modes, maps, and the squad system. Conquest and Breakthrough are getting special attention, along with class-based gameplay (Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon).

Right now, testing is limited to a lucky few thousand players in Europe and North America, but EA promises to expand access later. So if you fancy being a guinea pig in EA’s latest Battlefield experiment, you might want to sign up before spots fill up.

Meanwhile, the game itself is being stitched together by four EA studios, collectively called Battlefield Studios. DICE is leading multiplayer development, Motive is designing maps and single-player missions, Criterion is handling solo content, and Ripple Effect is working on something new.

All of this is set in a modern-day, interconnected Battlefield universe—a vision EA has been quietly piecing together for years. In fact, according to Battlefield’s general manager, Byron Beede, the game has already been in daily internal playtests for over a year. Now, they’re letting real players in on the action.

So, in short—EA is building Battlefield with you. Just don’t be surprised if it takes a few extra patches to stop tanks from backflipping.