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The Story

Battlefield 3's single-player story mode (or campaign) is set in the near future of 2014, with a focus upon Sgt. Blackburn and his squad who have been ordered to Iraq to look into the disappearance of another squad who was tasked with seeking out IED's and who disappeared - during a firefight with the PLR and a subsequent earthquake Blackburn's squad is forced into retreat without finding them.

After subsequent military operations including jet bomber runs, Blackburn and his squad are sent to Tehran charged with completing a battle damage assessment for the Central Command as well as capturing the leader of the PLR, Al-Bashir, who is reported in the area. While in the process of tracking down the PLR leader, the squad learns of the Russian portable nuclear devices that the terrorists now have, verifying that there were originally three devices, and that two of them are missing.

Just as they discover this intel a fresh push in by the PLR requires a relief column of M1 Abrams led by Sergeant Jonathan “Jono” Miller to be deployed in order to extract Blackburn's squad - and while Miller does help the squad to reach the chopper that pulls them out, he is not so lucky and is captured. Al-Bashir video tapes himself executing Miller in a grotesque stages event of the sort that have become all too familiar in real life, and later Al-Bashir is captured, but before he dies as a result of the injuries that he suffers in the process, at the realization that his cohort, Solomon, has betrayed him, he reveals that the two nukes will be detonated in Paris and New York City!

In the process of working through their mission the squad uncovers additional intel that leads to an arms dealer named Kaffarov - who has factored in previous stories - and who is now working with Solomon. In pursuit of Kaffarov the squad encounters a very large Russian military force that also appears to be tracking the arms dealer, and the Russians turn hostile when they discover the American unit, trying very hard to wipe them out!

Blackburn's squad is nearly annihilated, suffering heavy casualties, and the Russians end up capturing and interrogating Kaffarov, but after they learn what he knows, they end up telling Blackburn what they learned from the arms dealer out of concern that the actions of the rogue Russian and his cohorts and the Russian origins of the suitcase nukes that were stolen could end up resulting in a war between Russia and the USA. During this information delivery Blackburn's CO appears, and reacts badly to pretty much everything, forcing the special operator to shoot his own officer!

Captured by the CIA shortly after that, Blackburn is interrogated because they believe that he is actually a Russian agent, or at least working for the Russians, and maybe at worse connected to the terrorist plot to detonate the nuke in New York. While all of this is going on the Russians try to stop Paris from being nuked - and fail - and Blackburn's situation is made even worse when it is revealed that not only is Solomon a long-time informant to the CIA, but the Agency believes him over Blackburn!

Out of time and options, Blackburn escapes with the aid of one of his surviving squadmates, and sets out to stop the attack on New York. Whether he succeeds or fails is pretty much up to you!