Let slip by Major Nelson, and detailed over on Something Awful, it looks as though BioWare is preparing yet another mutliplayer expansion pack. This one is titled Earth, and as you can gather from the title it’s all about humans.

The Earth DLC pack will add the following to the core Mass Effect 3 multiplayer experience:

• Six new human classes; Fury, Destroyer, Demolisher, Paladin, Shadow and Slayer.
• Unique abilities for all the classes. The Slayer is equipped with a sword for melee attacks, the Paladin can defend and attack with an energy shield, and the Demolisher can place grenade restoring pylons around the map to aid squad mates.
• Three new weapons: Piranha assault shotgun, Acolyte pistol, and Typhoon light machine gun.
• New maps taking place on Earth, set in Rio, Vancouver and London.
• A new ‘Platinum’ game mode.

What is Platinum? The leak didn’t specify, though we’re guessing it adds a new, harder difficulty option above the standard limit of Gold.

The Mass Effect 3: Earth multiplayer expansion looks to be going live on 17 July 2012, no doubt for Xbox 360, PlayStaton 3 and PC. And just as with previous multiplayer expansion packs, it looks to be free.