The vice-president of EA Games has revealed that DICE is busy beavering away on non-Battlefield projects, with speculation pointing to a sequel to cult hit Mirror’s Edge.
Chatting OXM, Patrick Soderlund insisted that DICE doesn’t want to become a ‘Battlefield factory’ following the enormous success of the third entry in the military shooter franchise.
Quizzed as to whether DICE is able to pursue riskier projects thanks to the security afforded by Battlefield, Soderlund replied:
“Well it depends, right? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. It’s also important for us – the DICE guys are roughly 300 people in the Stockholm studio; not all of them are working on Battlefield things, and that’s intentional, because we don’t want to become a Battlefield factory.”
“The minute we start saying ‘you’re going to make a Battlefield game for the rest of your life’, they’re going to go some place else.”
“So for them to make great Battlefield games there need to be other things for them to do as well. That’s why we have people who move around quite a bit. And then obviously we have a boatload of people that just want to make Battlefield because they love it.”
“Same thing with the team in San Francisco that are making Dead Space. It’s a stunning team and they’re passionate about what they do, and they love making Dead Space. Then the answer’s ‘well, then make Dead Space’. Then we have to figure out how to sell it and make it successful.”
DICE recently announced Battlefield 4 for a pre-March 2014 release, with a beta due to kick off in September 2013.
Mirror’s Edge 2 has been rumored for some time now, and EA has frequently insisted that it hasn’t given up on the parkour-fused actioner. Of course, the original game wasn’t quite the success the publisher was hoping for, which is presumably why a sequel hasn’t seen the light of day yet.
On the otherh and Battlefield 3 was a monster hit for EA, shipping 12 million copies after just one week on sale. Furthermore, EA big cheese Peter Moore insisted that the title had nabbed some market share off of Modern Warfare 3.
Stay tuned to PSU.com for more details.