It’s war! Well, obviously it’s war when discussing war shooters Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. But EA’s announcement that DICE’s shooter will receive its second DLC map pack on the same day as Infinity Ward releases its first certainly takes the pair into hostile territory.

The news comes from an update to the Battlefield blog entitled “How to avoid ‘mapthy’ without paying” – a not very thinly veiled reference to Infinity Ward’s cryptic announcement of its DLC release date.

The BFBC2 content will be free to anyone who has redeemed their VIP code included in all new copies of the game.

Those who bought the game second-hand and don’t have a VIP code can join in the fun as long as they are willing to shell out for a code online.

“VIP members will be able to expand on the deep and ever changing sandbox experience, which in itself provides near endless hours of entertainment, by having new content to keep things fresh,” DICE’s KM Troedsson stated.

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“It also plays a vital part in making sure you, the players get proper value for the money you’ve invested in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. This is why these map packs are available at no extra cost, contradicting the industry standard and what our direct competitors are doing. Of course, it also helps avoid segmenting the community, making sure everyone can play together having the same maps available.

“There will be future paid downloadable content as well but these packs will focus on expanding other parts of the game experience rather than the selection of maps available for the basic game modes. We’re dedicated to taking care of this product for a long time – helping you avoid ‘mapathy’ without getting nickel-and-dimed.”

It was also revealed in the announcement that in the last 24 hours alone users have racked up a total of 2.5m game hours playing online.