DICE and EA have confirmed to Ausgamers that there will be no Battlefield 3 PC patches outside of EA’s online service dubbed Origin, so it’s either you’re in or out if you want your PC experience with the shooter to be supported.
That’s after a recent 3.6GB patch, gamers were requesting that future patches be released as standalone files to allow for faster dowanloads through ISP-hosted mirrors, but the firms said no.
not surprising, opening it up to standard downloads would make it really easy for people to hack it and try get around the punkbuster software.