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DICE’s Patrick Bach has revealed how the studio managed to convince EA to sign off on a follow-up to 2008 fan-favourite Mirror’s Edge, explaining that the key to getting the game green-lit was simply down to developing a good enough pitch.
“You need to have a great pitch,” Bach told VideoGamer.com, discussing how the studio talked EA into letting it develop a new Mirror’s Edge game at Gamescom.
“The interesting thing is that it’s not about EA blocking DICE, it’s about DICE not… Imagine this: it’s your own money. What do you want to bet on? You want to bet on something that you know will be great. You can’t just bet on a name. You need to have like, what’s the concept?”
DICE has wanted to develop a follow-up to Mirror’s Edge for many years, Bach confirmed, but the studio ended up “turning and twisting” ideas to settle on its vision before approaching EA with a pitch.
“Not until we knew what we wanted it to be and felt comfortable we then pitched it to EA,” Bach continued. “Then usually when we like it, everyone else likes it. So I think we are the bad cop in most cases when it comes to scrutinising ideas and IPs and features, or whatever it might be.
“Then again, we are the development studio with creative freedom, I would argue. We would not try to pitch something that we didn’t believe in, and that takes time. Sometimes you want something but you don’t really believe it will pan out that well.”
DICE revealed a next-gen follow-up to Mirror’s Edge at E3, thought to be an open-world prequel to the 2008 original.
“I think the most important thing you can do is treat your IPs with respect,” Bach adds. “And the good thing right now – and maybe I shouldn’t talk about EA as a whole right now because my PR [is here] – but in general, EA is very positive about us, like [asking us], ‘What do you want?’, instead of someone telling you, ‘Build this, do that’.”
In addition to Mirror’s Edge, DICE is currently developing this November’s Battlefield 4 and a 2015 reboot of Star Wars: Battlefront.
A release date for Mirror’s Edge has yet to be announced.
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