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Early February looks have arrived at the end of January. The Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer demo that retailers pegged for next month dropped onto Xbox LIVE today out of nowhere, over a month ahead of its March 2nd release date.

In the online-only demo, players can take to the snow covered Alaskan coast of the Port Valdez map, and blow it to hell and back with the available five classes and variety of vehicles. "Fight together to secure valuable crates in 'Rush Mode' as the action progresses seamlessly across a variety of different locations."

Take note that the demo servers will only be up and running until February 25th, so enjoy while it lasts. Modern Warfare 2 definitely has itself some competition here.

Remember all that talk about the possibility of DLC for Final Fantasy XIII from last year? Square-Enix said that there were "exploring" the idea of "perhaps adding new areas, items or enemies, but these would not be expansions to the story, only the gameplay." Then earlier this year the publisher confirmed that nearly an entire new game's worth of content had been left on the cutting room floor. It's getting a bit more interesting now as the North American and European versions speed towards their March 9th release.

Producer Yoshinori Kitase has apparently said in the pages of the game's Ultimania Guide that "If asked if [DLC is] possible or impossible, it's possible. However, at present we're not considering it." Keep in mind that this is based on internet hearsay of the guide.

On the same token, though, the newest issue of the Dutch Official PlayStation Magazine allegedly has another interview with Kitase, where the producer says, "At first we had plans to release the game simultaneously worldwide. So we had the intention to deliver identical version between the regions. When we noticed that we wouldn’t make it, we decided to release the game as fast as possible in the west after its release in Japan. We initially had doubts to add extra content to the western version but then it would have taken the international version more months of delay. We did prepare DLC but it will arrive a little later in the west."

Hmm. There is very clearly a lack of "nope, this isn't ever happening" in the statements. It would probably be a safe bet to say that at some point, a little extra content of some sort will make its way onto Xbox LIVE. Having completed the Japanese version of FFXIII last month, though, I doubt you'll be blazing through it and aching for new missions shortly after launch. But at least if you're the sort of gamer who likes DLC, well, now there's hope.

The Dragon Age: Origins Return to Ostagar shenanigans will (hopefully) come to and end next week, according to BioWare. It's been nothing but a bumpy road on the way to Ostagar, with the DLC add-on having been yanked at the last minute, uploaded alongside a technically crippling patch, and then yanked again only to leave fans waiting for news on a new release date.

"Unfortunately we did not foresee the changes being made to impact the systems it did, which is how something seemingly so visible still managed to avoid the dev team, and multiple test cycles of seasoned QA all through our internal teams, and EA and MS cert teams, and ultimately ended up out to the public," BioWare's Fernando Melo fessed up to earlier this month. But it looks like creases have been ironed out, as word that the content is on track for a timely re-upload soon has hit.

"We have a big investment planned for Dragon Age with more DLC coming in the next week or so ... It's almost through certification and it will go back up very soon," says BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka to GamerZines.

"We ran into an issue with a title update simultaneously hitting with Return to Ostagar, and there was a timing issue with both of those. I don't know if it was a communication error with our distribution partners or what happened there. If they were released in order it would have been fine but it created a bug which prevented progression and obviously that wasn't acceptable so we pulled it down."

For what it's worth, the hiccup surrounding Ostagar led to additional testing, which "actually benefits some of the upcoming DLC and expansion packs, and as such is not expected to impact dates of the future content." So that's good, right?

Battle of Forli, the first of two, cut-from-the-game DLC add-ons for Assassin's Creed II, goes live tomorrow. Shall we take a peek at what adventures lie within this deleted mission, and where Ezio will be going?

I think we should. Ubisoft do as well, and released the trailer today, so that you can decide if this companion tale is worthy of your 320 hard-earned Space Bucks Florins.

Oh, and it doesn't include Achievements. So there you go.

So there's a fairly good chance that Bizarre Creations, soon to be fresh off of delivering Blur, will be taking on Activision's next 007 title. We know that much.They are more than familiar with driving games, and they have some expertise in the shooter department with The Club, and as it turns out, this next James Bond entry is reportedly a third-person shooter with heavy driving segments. Kinda fits.

Last fall word also crept out from U.K. soap actor Adam Croasdell, who confirmed that he would starring as the secret agent in "the new James Bond video game."

This week a job listing at the developer has been discovered, seeking an "Experienced/Senior Designer to join our talented action team and work on a currently unannounced, extremely high-profile major movie license."

The desired employee needs to have a "proven ability to design and help create engaging gaming experiences (preferably experience in a 1st/3rd person shooter)," too. Hmm. The pieces, they continue to add up.

Though it is a bit odd that the game is considered "unannounced" when Activision have already confirmed a new 007 for 2010; but, we have yet to get a name, release date, or official confirmation that Bizarre is actually working on it from the publisher, so they're just playing by the rules. Likewise, while this is a movie license, this year's Bond game won't be tied to 2011's Bond 23 film -- that will likely have it's own tie-in. Unless Bizarre's title is the tie-in to the next movie, that is. Confusing. That's what happens when you annualize a franchise, though.

What is better than a fluffy teddy bear busting through a wooden fence in a rampage, with a sharpened machete, gunning for his helpless and totally scarred for life if they run friends?

Not much, that's what. And that's exactly what Artificial Mind & Movement are giving us with the official box art for Naughty Bear, due out this year. Words cannot do this any justice.

There was a time last year when DICE said that there was "a lot of pressure on the team for Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 ... we don't want to stretch things too thin and and make something that's not up to quality " in regards to downloadable content for the massively successful XBLA game, Battlefield 1943. They had "no immediate plans" then to create additional maps or content, but it was not ruled out for the future.

What do you know? Here we are five months in the future, and those plans seem to be coming around.

Karl-Magnus Troedsson, executive producer at DICE, tells OXM that not only is DLC in the works, but there's also the chance for a sequel to the game.

"We will see more of those in the future? We'll see. As a franchise, we're going to focus on the near future but that doesn't exclude that we can do more of these smaller products in the near future."

"However," he added, "there's one important piece to this puzzle, and that's that we need to take care of our products post-launch. We haven't released any premium DLC for 1943, for instance, which feels like a natural step to take."