Battlefield 4 can be “very successful” in modern setting – EA

By: Musa Afridi

  |   August 17th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

DICE has confirmed it will stick to the modern warfare genre amidst speculation that it will be pulling a Call of Duty and aiming towards a near future setting.

The Battlefield is EA’s primary first-person shooter franchise with the series currently holding the record for the publisher as being the fastest-selling game in the company’s history. No mean feat as EA is responsible for titles such as the Need for Speed, FIFA and Madden series as well.

Battlefield 3 was an immense success for EA even though it did not compete on the sales front with its rival, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, it did manage to re-establish the brand as a major force in the first-person shooter market.

Treyarch decided to take the Call of Duty series in a different direction by choosing a near-future setting for their game and following the move all eyes turned on EA and DICE to see whether they would follow suit. It turns out that they will not be and seem happy with the modern day setting for the time being.

Karl Magnus Troedsson, the general manager of DICE, went on record at the Game Developers Conference and explained that a number of factors were taken into consideration before any decision was taken.

He said, “There’s a lot of things inspiring us as to how the franchise will move on. Everything from fans’ feedback, to market research and, of course, what we want to build ourselves. It’s not just one single thing.”

He continued, “We still want to stay in this genre, the modern day that is. We feel this is a place we can be and continue with the series. Battlefield 4 can live in this space and be very successful.”

Battlefield 4 was confirmed by EA earlier in the year after it beta access to the game was leaked to the public in a listing for EA’s other title, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

The news came around the same time debate surrounding whether the publisher would push for a Bad Company title or not. It turns out that gamers will be staying in the core Battlefield brand for the time being but EA has not put off the idea of another Bad Company game in the future.

DICE now has a full year to develop the next game in the series while EA will be focusing on ensuring that the Danger Close developed title, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, gets the attention it deserves before release.

At the same time a senior EA executive claims he has seen both Microsoft and Sony’s next generation consoles and believes that the future of gaming will be based around the free-to-play or freemium business model.