Excited that Battlefield is going back to World War 1 instead of to the future with Battlefield 1? Well, it almost didn’t came to be.
During EA’s Investor Day briefing, EA VP of EA Studios Patrick Soderlund admits that he rejected DICE’s pitch for a Battlefield game based on WW1 since he thought that trench warfare wasn’t that exciting. However, DICE didn’t stop trying to have it approved, and eventually convinced Soderlund to finally give it the green light.
[World War 1] wasn’t the most obvious choice…If you look at what other partners in the industry are doing, they’re going into sci-fi; we’ve had a lot of success in the modern military space. But we felt like there was a need for a change.
When the team presented the idea to me of World War 1, I absolutely rejected it…I said World War 1, it’s trench warfare; it can’t be fun to play.
Now though Soderlund is convinced that the WW1 setting is”right for the franchise and EA,” and added that while EA has gotten a lot of kudos from gamers for its first BF1 trailer, what’s important is that they can deliver “on the full promise of what Battlefield can and that we will do.”
Do you think EA made the right call with the decision to let DICE bring back the Battlefield franchise to WW1? Or will it sell less compared to its predecessors given it’s not based on current or future tech and weapons?
[Source: GameSpot]
