Publisher Electronic Arts (EA) announced today the creation of DICE Los Angeles, a new studio inspired by the name of its subsidiary DICE, the Swedish developer that has achieved outstanding success with its Battlefield franchise. DICE Los Angeles will be focused primarily on developing additions to the Star Wars universe.
This is the result of a recent multi-year agreement between EA and Disney, the latter of which recently acquired the rights to everything bearing the Star Wars name. In turn, Disney sold the rights to create Star Wars console and PC games to EA after shuttering LucasArts. The games will be developed using DICE’s Frostbite 3 engine, the same engine being used for Battlefield 4.
DICE CEO Karl Magnus-Troedsson made a number of remarks concerning the new studio, discussing with the Wall Street Journal the new studio’s impact on both existing franchises and new entries. EA has allocated some of its staff away from its Medal of Honor franchise toward DICE Los Angeles, but Troedsson does not want to stop there:
"There is an extreme talent pool over [at Activision] that we want a part of," he said, acknowledging EA’s chief publishing competitor and its Infinity Ward and Treyarch talent pools.
Steven Chaffin is a U.S. staff writer for PlayStation Universe, and is cautiously optimistic that DICE Los Angeles will be the developer of the long-awaited, canned Star Wars: Battlefront 3. For more from Steven, follow him @steven_chaffin.