Battlefield 4's second-screen features exclusive to Xbox One, PS4, and PC

The second-screen features in Battlefield 4, which allows players to tinker with maps and loadouts via mobile or tablet while in-game, won't be available in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, DICE has confirmed.

In an interview with Engadget, Battlelog assistant producer Jesper Nielsen said that the lack of current-gen support for Battlelog's Battlescreen--as DICE calls it--is down to the PC and next-gen versions of Battlelog being entirely based on the web.

"Battlelog is powered by the web, and that has a lot of implications," he said. "There are a lot of different things you can do, things you can do faster, rather than building stuff in native code."

Nielsen did not mention if Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions can use a tablet to operate Battlefield 4's new Commander Mode, as was shown during the game's E3 2013 presentation.

Nielsen said another big bonus is that the new web-based Battlelog will allow DICE to deploy patches and updates to the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 versions of the game a lot easier than it would for 360 and PS3.

"It's going to be a lot easier for us to actually update things from the in-game Battlelog than would otherwise be the case," he said. "You'd have to do patches normally; here we can actually do things almost by the flick of a finger."

Nielsen said DICE's experiments in second-screen gaming was a learning experience for the studio, and that the team also looked at using the Xbox One's screen snapping feature to display Battlelog.

"The real test once we get it out to the players and see how they use it," added Nielsen, "both when they play and don't play. That will teach us a lot and help us innovate even more in this field. We don't have the answers to all the questions in this space yet, so it's definitely a bit of an experiment, but we're very confident with some of the steps we've taken to provide a truly meaningful and valuable second-screen experience."

DICE said yesterday that August's Gamescom 2013 trade show will be "one hell of a show" for Battlefield 4.

Battlefield 4 will launch for PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 on October 29. Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions will follow.