With Battlefield 3 so close to release, DICE is focused on supporting the title to its fullest extent, not immediately working on a follow-up. Considering the strength of the franchise, nobody’s in a hurry to mess with success, and rushing through development on a sequel could hurt the ability of current games to flourish among fans.
Patrick Bach, series producer for Battlefield, discussed the team’s reasons for thinking annual releases could do more harm than good. While the developers have maintained that there’s no direct rivalry with Call of Duty, one could infer a poke at competing games from Bach’s statements:
DICE and Electronic Arts haven’t been shy with voicing their opinions, calling some of competition is lazy, or accusing them of treading water instead of innovating. Bach doesn’t dispute supporting existing titles via things like map packs, or in the case of Bad Company 2, releasing the Vietnam expansion which essentially created a brand new game:
“EA would never force us to release a game every year. I think that would dilute the vision of the franchise, and you will eventually kill the franchise by doing that.”
After putting a lot of work into creating the Frostbite 2 engine, enabling cooperative play, and having an engaging single-player campaign, DICE has every justification for not falling into the trappings of annually releasing a new BF game.
“I think that’s a more healthy way of expanding on the game experience. It’s not a new game but a twist on your old game, and I think that’s a healthier way of looking at a franchise rather than just trying to cram every single last penny out of it.”
Do you think this approach will help or hurt Battlefield? Would you prefer to trust the development team, or see another studio take a crack at the series formula?
Battlefield 3 releases October 25, 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
-
Follow me on Twitter @TrungleFever
Source: Gamerzines
