from the new Battleblog: 

There's never been any reason for more than two factions since they haven't ever had 1v1v1 combat. There is no room for innovation in this port.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say the two main weapons will be an M16 variant and an AK variant.

So no terrorists or Chinese?  Dumb.  I want some racist voice overs damn it!

You mean no Chinese or Arab faction? Time to slap someone on the hand.

Wasn't BF2 the last BF game with more than 2 factions? It's not exactly shocking.

i wanted to see Australia vs Canada :(

There's never been any reason for more than two factions since they haven't ever had 1v1v1 combat. There is no room for innovation in this port.

@PeasantAbuse: I totally agree. I loved the 3 and 4 team maps in Team Fortress Classic.

I found the 3 factions in BF2 to be dumb, since it was more or less USA vs Everyone else. The Chinese and Arab forces never fought each other.

Sure they could have gone for a completely new faction, but I don't care that much. Just hope there will be faction specific weapons this time, unlike BC2.

That's what DLC is for.

Say what?
 
To be honest, this isn't something that I would "miss" but surely enough the difference of appeal for each faction in Battlefield 2 was an addition that differentiated the atmosphere of each map.  Was it more work to be done by DiCE to achieve such a thing? Probably, but if my knowledge doesn't deceive me, there is an Iraq/Iranian enemy in the game, why not use that as an asset and work with it?

There's never been any reason for more than two factions since they haven't ever had 1v1v1 combat. There is no room for innovation in this port.

So no terrorists or Chinese?  Dumb.  I want some racist voice overs damn it!

Wasn't BF2 the last BF game with more than 2 factions? It's not exactly shocking.

To me it will be down to the maps. Does it makes sense to have russians here? Yeah, they're in desert camo gear. Make sense to have russians here? Well yeah it's a snowy winter landscape of Russia. How about here? Yep. Having black people in Resident Evil 5? Yes.

In the end it's down to the old red vs blue, enemy and friend.

ESKA PJESKA!

Even the first Bad Company had 3 factions.

At least one of the factions isn't "Opposition Forces".

It's shaping up to be a... 
 
MODERN MILITARY SHOOTER :O

I want to see Greeks vs. Potatoes =(

Until maps are built large enough to support 3-way warfare, there's no point in my opinion.

To me, thats a smart move.

To the average casual fps player this might sound lame, cause apparently more=better, but i like the idea of only two factions. limiting the number of silhouettes and character models you have to make out, in a frantic and fast moment only benefits the gameplay. You dont have 3 different factions where you have to constant be guessing which one is my team mate and which one is my enemy. Having fewer models and factions, makes it easier to extinguish which one is the one to shoot at and which one not to shoot at. nothing is worse, than shooting a teammate or getting shot before you could shoot the guy aiming at you, cause you couldnt figure out if he was an ally or an enemy. Having easily reconizable and only the vital characters in the game can have a huge effect on the gameplay.....

But godfuckingdamnit i want my European/Scandinavian Psuedo army faction!

i wanted to see Australia vs Canada :(

Who Cares?

Its not like the chinese have mechs or something, it doesnt matter whos fighting and a good developer adds things no matter who the faction is. You're being a huge pesimist and you know the game will at least be fine. Besides a 1v1v1 game would be rather hectic and just because there are only 2 facions doesn't mean theres less value like you're saying. Im no developer, but it seems like they're doing a fine job and your just being annoying.

1v1v1 would be fun i guess, but no other game has done it, so you can't just put it as a standard and say "I don't like it cause it doesn't have this feature thats never exsisted!". Its fine to want new things, but don't be an ass because a game isn't a revoloution for the shooter.

Trivial.

@scarace360 said:

i wanted to see Australia vs Canada :(

You probably couldn't have 2 less likely opposed countries lol.

I wonder when the whole USA vs Russia thing will end, communism in Russia has been dead since 1991, so is the Cold War.

@Daiphyer said:

@S0ndor: Bad Company 1 had 3 factions. BF2 had around 4 factions if I remember right.

BF2 started with 3 factions, then the European Union faction was added with the booster packs. It was included into the regular BF2 game with the 1.5 patch that made the booster maps free tor everybody.

And then there's the Expansion pack (not to be confused with the Boosters) which had 6 factions (US Navy Seals, British SAS, Russian Spetsnaz, MEC Special Forces, insurgents, and Chechnian rebels.

Wait your telling me that their are two factions in a video game!

Who cares, it's still (great) multiplayer that I can't wait to play

Since weapons are not based on factions in Battlefield 3, this doesn't mean much of anything. Its not like in 2 where only the MEC got Ak47s

That's what DLC is for.

@Ahmad_Metallic: Aw shit I was really hoping for a middle eastern faction.I love hearing arabic.

@Ahmad_Metallic: There have been a total of 7 Battlefield games since then. All with 2 factions. The fact that they do not match the purist ideal of what a Battlefield game is supposed to be doesn't change that.   So again, not shocking at all.

To me it will be down to the maps. Does it makes sense to have russians here? Yeah, they're in desert camo gear. Make sense to have russians here? Well yeah it's a snowy winter landscape of Russia. How about here? Yep. Having black people in Resident Evil 5? Yes.

In the end it's down to the old red vs blue, enemy and friend.

ESKA PJESKA!

@S0ndor said:

@Ahmad_Metallic: There have been a total of 7 Battlefield games since then. All with 2 factions. The fact that they do not match the purist ideal of what a Battlefield game is supposed to be doesn't change that.   So again, not shocking at all.

Those aren't main-series games, they're spin offs and downloadables, they don't really count when talking Battlefield 3 don't you think ? 
  

It seems odd to me that the campaign stuff they've shown is against "fake Taliban" but the multiplayer is against Russians.  
 
I don't mind though, Russians make great villains. 

It would be nice to have more, but it's not a big deal to me.

could be worse, it could be.... ALIENS VS SPACE MARINES.

Russians are the new Nazis.

I wonder if they are running out of time and felt it necessary to make content cuts in order to make the deadline. In BF2 the US, MEC and Chinese each had different vehicles and weapons. There was a lot of variety and it felt like a 'large' scale environment.  I wonder if they, or marketing or ass kissers, will use the excuse that "hey they are also including a single player campaign". I thought they said SP wouldn't affect the quality of the MP.  SP is to accommodate the console user base.
 
If anything, China should still be in the game. China has all the factories making cloths and foods and electronics. They could pull off some economic problems to western countries in reality. The whole Russia thing is just an extension of the cold war era. How could they claim "Modern" when they are touching on cold war situations. The times of today all point to China as the economic power house. All the money they get from western countries buying various electronics from Apple products to hard drives to motherboards to food stuffs, clothing, etc... a lot of the profit from our purchases goes to their weapons programs.

is this really something were complaining about now?

This is EXACTLY like the thing that happened in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005......Germans vs. Americans. The U.S vs. Russia thingy is boring.

@Gabriel said:

Russians are the new Nazis.

except russians are badass enemies

i dont mind this at all. i dont see the big deal?
hell they could be  "generic team A vs. generic team B" as long as the gameplay was fun i wouldnt care.

That's disappointing as I felt the three army setup in BF2 (as well as the introduction of SAS, Spetsnaz, EU, etc) were just plain awesome. Playing as insurgents on one map, then playing as SAS defending against Spetsnaz on the next map, then playing as the European Union against China.... It was really exciting.

I can't think of something dumber to complain about.

Would have been sooo cool if they had spiced it up with 1v1v1 battles. That would really be some significant modification to the fomula.

3 would be good, just in the feeling of a "wider" war. But im ok with this. I'll play the russians(GRU unit wohoo!) anyday ;)

Why no Africa?