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DICE won’t accept anything less than a two year development cycle for any major Battlefield title, studio general manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson has told VideoGamer.com.
It’s all down to ensuring each game meets three core principles set out at the studio.
“The plan for the franchise is not set in stone in any way. The things that are set in stone are the core values within DICE, which are quality, innovation and fun,” explained Troedsson.
“So one of the key things that is very important for us is that each Battlefield title, at least the bigger ones, should get a full two-year development cycle so we can hit those three core values. And that means we are going to be focussed on making one big Battlefield game approximately every two years if that fits with all the other things that need to align. Building a big game like that to quality that we want it to be should be a proper development cycle.”
He added: “Between those years we can focus on other things. We can do Play4Free and we can do perhaps Arcade games, we can do a lot of other things as well, but bigger titles will need more time.”
It’s becoming increasingly commonplace to see publishers spreading development duties for key franchises across multiple teams – Ubisoft does it with Assassin’s Creed, Activision is doing it with Modern Warfare 3 and DICE has been part of a two-studio project with Danger Close for Medal of Honor. However, Troedsson isn’t a fan of distributed development.
“We’re part of the EA family and we want to help out as much as we can, but I have to say that I’m not a believer of distributed development myself,” he explained. “I believe that great teams in the same location are the ones that can build the highest quality. That’s something that I would like to see more in the future moving forward. The different locations and different studios inside of EA focus on building their games.
“I can’t speak for everyone else but that’s how we try to do things at DICE.”
That doesn’t mean Troedsson and his team won’t lend a hand when needed: “But naturally we want to help out and with the creation of Frostbite 2 and other teams using those as well, it’s been natural to come over to other teams as well, like the NFS team. If not directly, but indirectly, the game teams work together to help each other out. As for the actual core team on a franchise, I believe they should stick in one place and work together.”
In the same interview, Troedsson told VideoGamer.com that Xbox 360 gamers have nothing to worry about and that the 360 version is going to look really, really good.
Hear more from Troedsson by checking out the complete Battlefield interview.
Battlefield 3 will be released October 28 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
