Battlefield 4 is officially a thing that exists, and you can pay 50 for beta access right now

So, after popping out a bit too early yesterday, EA has quickly zipped back up, composed itself, and slapped down an official, proper, full-sized reveal of Battlefield 4 today.

Well, a reveal of the game's existence anyway. And the fact that you can sign up to play it right now. Kind of.

While it's highly doubtful that EA always planned to reveal BF4 today - it's much more likely that yesterday's slip-up simply prompted a large bout of "F*ck it, whatever", leading to today's announcement - EA is now being rather up-front about the game's existence. Addressing the erroneous advertisement of the game's beta on Battlefield 4.com, the publisher has now stated:

"The team at DICE is hard at work on the next entry in the Battlefield series, and to ensure access to the exclusive Battlefield 4 beta, shooter fans can pre-order Medal of Honor Warfighter today."

EA goes on - after a bit of brief arse-covering regarding having nothing more to say about BF4 and any further reporting being naught but lies and deceit - to repeatedly emphasise that Battlefield 3 still has plenty of life left in it, with three more expansion packs to come. In fact the rest of the chunky PR nugget seems to go out of its way to scream "Battlefield 3 isn't obsolete! We promise! Now keep enjoying your Battlefield 3 Premium subscriptions and stop asking us about BF4"

Which would be kind of an understandable standpoint to take I suppose, were one to have just let slip word of the successor to the game it had just started scoring loads of extra money from, and were that game part of a series whose fanbase traditionally enjoys each entry for many, many years indeed.

But hey, Battlefield 4. Definitely a thing, and coming out who knows when (but probably 2013). Drop £50 at the Origin store and get yourself signed up to the beta today. If you like.