Electronic Arts has confirmed, once again, that the publisher has no plans to annualize its Battlefield franchise. It's a question that the publisher has answered numerous times in the past, yet always seems to be brought up around by analysts and media. And each time, it's usually the same answer.
"The challenges are you've got to most likely do it out of two studios because it's hard," EA CFO Black Jorgensen said at a UBS conference, in reference to rival publisher Activision Blizzard splitting Call of Duty's development between Infinity Ward and Treyarch (via Seeking Alpha). "It's a two-year project."
"Battlefield takes us about two years to develop and so you want to make sure that you're sharing talent across studios, so you keep [the] core talent of the product and the experience for the consumer there. You also want to be really careful that you don't destroy the franchise along the way. You got to make it exciting and different, but at the same time you want to make sure you maintain a great franchise.
"And Battlefield is a product that doesn't just sell once, it sells for 24-months associated with not just Battlefield, but all the additional Battlefield Premium activities that the consumer wants," Jorgensen added. "So you've got to be careful that you don't destroy some of that tail that is on the Battlefield product."
Now that Battlefield 4 is out, it's likely that DICE is working on Mirror's Edge 2. Meanwhile, it's new LA studio is taking on the enormous task of creating a new Star Wars: Battlefront. Neither has a release date, but I could definitely see Battlefront filling the Battlefield void next year.
