The Xbox Live Arcade incarnation of the Battlefield series has now been dated.  Battlefield 1943 will be released as a downloadable title on July 8.

Battlefield 1943 is a sequel to the original Battlefield title, Battlefield 1942.  The game takes place during World War II in Pacific locations, and uses the Frostbite game engine that EA DICE developed for Battlefield: Bad Company, complete with the destructible environments.

The game will be online-only, featuring the classic Conquest-style game mode on three multiplayer maps.  Once the Xbox 360 community collectively racks up 43 million kills, a fourth map will be released.

Meanwhile, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is still in the works for a release in early 2010.

Well, I’ve fallen behind on my blogging, and what a week for that to happen.  I didn’t have time to post all of the news on here, so I posted most of it to the Xbox Living Twitter account.  Here’s a rundown of what’s going on:

• Point Lookout, another DLC for Fallout 3, will be out on June 23
• Halo 3: ODST will be out on September 22
• Dragon Age: Origins will be released on October 20
• Forza Motorsport 3 will be out in October
• Assassin’s Creed 2 will be out November 17
• Left 4 Dead 2 will also be out November 17
• Alan Wake finally emerged with a trailer on Xbox Live.  It will be out Spring 2010.
• Final Fantasy XIII was shown off on the Xbox 360.  It will be out Spring 2010.
• A new Halo title was announced.  Halo: Reach will be out in Fall 2010.
• Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 will be out in 2010
• Crackdown 2 was confirmed to be in the works.  A short trailer is available on Xbox Live.  The game promises “unprecedented levels” of multiplayer, both coop and competetive.
• Metal Gear Solid Rising is in development for the Xbox 360
• Square Enix announced a third-person mech shooter, Front Mission Evolved
• Microsoft announced Project Natal, a camera controller that will eliminate the need to hold anything.  It has facial recognition features and can track body movements.
• Microsoft promises that the Xbox 360 will get Modern Warfare 2 DLC maps first
• Joy Ride will be a free-to-play driving game featuring Xbox Live avatars
• Wolfenstein 3D is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace
• Sony announced that Final Fantasy XIV, the next Square Enix MMO, would be PS3-exclusive.  Later, they admitted it was coming to PC also.  Even later, Square Enix said it may still come to the Xbox 360.  Nice try, Sony.
• Microsoft says the Xbox 360 will be supported until 2015 at least
• The Xbox 360 will get support for Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm

So that’s most of it.  Lots of exciting games to check out in the next little while.  Be sure to follow @xboxliving on Twitter to get more updates as they happen!

Check out this interview with a DICE rep from GameSpot. We’ve got details on the multiplayer in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, as well as a first look at the game in action. 2010 seems too far away now.

Want more Xbox 360 updates?  Follow @xboxliving on Twitter.

We’ve got a new teaser for Modern Warfare 2 out now, showing a hint of gameplay:

It looks like the big reveal will be during the NBA Eastern Conference on May 24.

Want more Xbox 360 updates?  Follow @xboxliving on Twitter.

Have a look at the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade game, Star Trek: D-A-C.  The game is a fairly simple space shooter, to go with the upcoming Star Trek film.  Multiplayer and a wide range of ships should make it fun.

As the movie is meant to put a little cool back into the Star Trek universe, this one should make its games more accessible. Who doesn’t love a little classic arcade-style gameplay?

An image of the main character in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed sequel has surfaced online.  Named Ezio, the character will appear in 15th Century Venice, where the game is set.

The character appears to be similar to Altair, the protaganist of the original game.  Assassin’s Creed 2 will take the players to a different time in Italy.  Ezio is said to have gliding wings available, designed by none other than Leonardo Da Vinci himself.  He also carries hidden blades on both arms, and will have a wider variety of weapons available.

The game also promises to offer up more variety in gameplay, as the first Assassin’s Creed was a bit repetetive.  Ezio will also be able to accomplish one simple task that Altair apparently couldn’t do: swimming.

More as it comes!

Halo 3’s long-awaited Mythic Map Pack has finally arrived on Xbox Live — at least, for those who didn’t already get it with the Halo Wars Limited Edition.

The Mythic Map Pack adds three new maps to Halo 3’s multiplayer: Assembly, Orbital and Sandbox. It can be downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points.

The Mythic pack also contains new achievements that can be earned specifically on the new maps, such as the search for skulls hidden within them.

Online retail giant Amazon has begun selling Xbox Live Arcade titles, along with Microsoft points, from its online store.  Amazon.com launched the new store yesterday in the U.S.

When purchasing Microsoft points or Live Arcade games from the site, Amazon will email you a code to use on Xbox Live in order to download the title.

The advantage of this is that it prevents Microsoft from obtaining your credit card information.  I’ve personally had this problem — where Microsoft billed my credit card when it wasn’t supposed to, and reversing the charges (and getting them to remove my card) took quite a bit of work over the phone.  I’ve vowed never to give my credit card information to Microsoft again, so buying from Amazon gives me an alternative to purchasing points from a physical store… that is, if the service ever comes to Amazon.ca.

A new teaser trailer has arrived for Battlefield: Bad Company 2:

Although the trailer doesn’t show any specific gameplay, it does tell us a bit about the changes in Bad Company 2.  One obvious example is the ability for snipers to operate in prone position.  This was oddly missing from the first Bad Company, although I wonder if this will make snipers too powerful, if they can be even more stealthy.

The trailer also suggests that there may be blood effects as well, since blood is prominently displayed.  The way the knife is used in the trailer is also different from the standard slashing movement in the game — I’m not sure whether this is for show or not, though.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is due out next winter — probably in early 2010.  The 3-map Xbox Live Arcade title Battlefield 1943: Pacific will be out this May to keep us busy until then.

Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux has told Kotaku that the next batch of Fable II DLC will be out this spring.  The new content will be titled See The Future.

“This time we’ve taken a little bit more time on it, it’s a little bit more story driven. … If you’re a real fan of Fable, it answers some of those questions. It’s going to test you a little bit emotionally as well. But I think the real unique thing here is it starts to tease and hint at what it starting to happen in the world of Albion and what is happening in the future.”

This also hints at what’s to come in the next title, the rumored Fable III.

“If you play See the Future you’re going to be getting a flavor at what’s going to be happening.”

I’ll let you know when I find out more about the DLC.