FA Cup premiere for Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 is getting an early push from EA with an FA Cup debut this weekend.

Publisher Electronic Arts will premiere a trailer for the triple-A shooter during tomorrow’s Man U vs Man City FA Cup semi-final, on ITV1 – and the game isn’t even due until November.

The ad will play during the half-time slot and is an edited version of the new trailer EA played to attendant games industry execs at last week’s 2011 MCV Industry Excellence Awards.

"We’ve had an amazing response from community and industry and we’re extremely excited to be able to show so much gameplay footage this early in the campaign," said Colin Blackwood, UK Business Lead, EA.

The game was unveiled during GDC in March. The publisher is especially proud of the media response to the game already, having scored quotes such as recreates war in all its wall-collapsing glory” (OPM), the most technically impressive video game we’ve ever seen” (Metro.co.uk), "beyond impressive” (OXM) and "unlike anything seen before" (MSN).

And the firm has good reason to shout about the game – it lands in the same month as many expect a new Call of Duty from rival Activision to arrive.

Two weeks ago, EA CEO John Riccitiello predicted that the two franchises were heading for a hundred million dollar marketing showdown – with Electronic Arts specifically hoping to ‘take down’ Activision’s goliath franchise.