Few games, and even fewer franchises, have been able to compete with Call of Duty this generation. Eight years into this console cycle and Activision’s juggernaut continues to produce yearly blockbuster releases that begs an all too familiar question for the franchise’s biggest opposition – DICE and Battlefield: Won’t you start producing games yearly too?
According to DICE's Patrick Bach, the answer is no. In an interview with VideoGamer last week in Germany during Gamescom, the executive producer told the publication that the company has no plans to make Battlefield an annualized series.
"I think the core Battlefield idea that we're working on at DICE is… We can't build a game at DICE every year," Bach explained.
"You saw with Battlefield 3, for instance, it's not that there's not an urge for more Battlefield. You mentioned Premium – we [had] 18 months worth of Battlefield and people want more things during that time. Now it's been almost two years and people feel like they are continuously playing – we still have huge amounts of players playing Battlefield 3. So I think in general, people apparently want Battlefield all year round."
Bach was also asked whether or not he could see the franchise moving away from standalone titles and towards regular DLC releases, including maps, weapons and even additional campaign experiences.
"Maybe it [could]," Bach says. "You're touching upon something that we've actually started noticing as well. Battlefield is almost turning into a first-person shooter/vehicular combat platform where people want more things but put into the same core mechanic.”
"So I don't know. Maybe it's a really smart thing to do; maybe it's the completely wrong thing to do. We can see that some games are actually doing it already, like MMOs. You have some free-to-play games [that] continue on the same platform. So I think it's more about the audience and getting all the ducks in a row, so to speak.”
Source: [VideoGamer]
