EA’s efforts to go head to head Activision in the annual end-of-year shooter market is obvious but the release of Battlefield: Hardline does not mean the publisher has annualized the franchise.
With Battlefield: Hardline following Battlefield 4 just one year later, it seems natural to assume that EA is following in Activision’s footsteps by turning Battlefield into an annual, multi-studio franchise. But according to EA Studios executive vice president Patrick Söderlund, that’s not actually the case.
“Karl-Magnus [Troedsson], who runs DICE studios, and Steve Papoutsis, who runs Visceral, basically met in Barcelona almost three years ago and they came to me and said ‘Hey, we have an idea,’” Söderlund told Polygon.
“The idea of a cops and robbers type Battlefield game has been with us — me and the DICE team — for more than ten years. There are early prototypes from, like, 2000 or 2001 of a game that we called back then Urban Combat. This has been lingering and we’ve been wanting to do something like this.”
Söderlund approved the plan, provded Visceral could prove its Battlefield chops by making an expansion pack.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to annualize Battlefield and that’s the way it’s going to be forever and ever. I understand that some people may look at it that way but that’s what happened,” he said.
