SAN FRANCISCO, May 8 ― The first piece of downloadable content for well-received action game Battlefield 1 is available gratis until May 14.

Game publisher Electronic Arts and its studio DICE are making the first of four Battlefield 1 expansions free for a limited time.

So integral to the history of the First World War was France's Armée de terre that a French multiplayer faction should have been included with the base game, it was argued at the time.

Now, with an eye on 2018's entry to the Battlefield franchise, the They Shall Not Pass portion of Battlefield 1 content is free to claim by all players on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC ― but only until May 14.

The giveaway marks the start of a promotional drive towards the launch of a new Battlefield game later in 2018.

Originally released in March 2017 to support October 2016's World War I action game Battlefield 1, They Shall Not Pass introduced the French Army, six new French environments, a tug-of-war style Frontlines mode, and a selection of period weapons, equipment, and vehicles.

The second of six maps, Rupture, had previously been broken out of the They Shall Not Pass package and made available to all players midway through April, at which point DICE promised game updates would continue "until June 2018.”

The giveaway is being promoted as part of a Road to Battlefield campaign.

EA has already indicated to financial investors that it plans on releasing a new Battlefield game in 2018, but so far has not issued any further details.

Two separate VentureBeat reports in March and then April 2018 suggested that the new release, referred to as Battlefield V, would be set in World War II and, at some point after its debut, would add a Battle Royale mode, following the popularity of action titles Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.

When the 2018 Battlefield releases, it will be entering an arena populated not only by Fortnite and PUBG, but also traditional rival Call of Duty, which has Black Ops 4 set for October 12, and, exceptionally, Red Dead Redemption 2, an ambitious, epic-scale Wild West game from the makers of the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Battlefield 1 was critically acclaimed and welcomed by fans of the first-person shooter genre at a time when its even more gigantine rival, Call of Duty, was being mocked for pursuing ever-more futuristic scenarios.

Activision responded with 2017's Call of Duty: WWII, which went on to achieve a five-year high for the franchise in terms of launch month consumer spend. ― AFP-Relaxnews