If you want to rent a fully customizable server for your Battlefield 1 competitions, be prepared to pay a little over $300 a year. That’s how much publisher Electronic Arts will charge for its rental server program starting in November, according to an announcement on the Battlefield forums today.
Total costs vary by platform (PC players pay a premium of approximately 50 percent over console players) and length of rental, as follows:
pc
1 day: $2.99
7 days: $11.99
30 days: $42.99
90 days: $99.99
180 days: $149.99PS4/Xbox One
1 day: $1.99
7 days: $7.99
30 days: $26.99
90 days: $64.99
180 days: $99.99
Battlefield 1 players will still be able to play for free on EA’s standard servers, which will host a variety of vanilla game modes for both ranked and unranked play for up to 64 players. Those who want to host a rented server get full control over details like map rotation, game modes, and gameplay settings like bullet damage and weapon availability. While EA says it could “limit the number of game modes available at launch and gradually enable them based on feedback and other circumstances,” the company promises additional customization options will be added in 2016 and beyond.
EA hosted a similar server rental program on consoles for Battlefield 4, although the PC server rental for that game was handled by third-party providers. In front of Battlefield 1EA decided to bring that dedicated server market under one roof, “to ensure the quality of the actual hardware… [and] giving everyone the same unified experience.”
While more expensive than the console alternative, EA’s consolidated PC server rentals will still cost a lot less than many popular third-party servers for Battlefield 4which could easily run $600 to $1000 per year for a server that could support 64 players (EA did not explicitly specify the player limit for its Battlefield 1 rental servers, but it is BF4 rent-a-server program supported 64 players simultaneously).
Shortly after Battlefield 1leaked announcement in May, EA confirmed that the game would have a default server browser in addition to the forced matchmaking that most modern first-person shooter players are familiar with. We’re still working on our review of the latest game ahead of Friday’s launch, but you can reread our impressions from a recent open beta while you wait.