Still confused about howHardline— theBattlefieldgame, not Destructoid’s podcast — came to be? EA Studios executive vice president Patrick Söderlund explained toPolygon:
“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.’Actually, the idea of a cops and robbers typeBattlefieldgame 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 thenUrban Combat. This has been lingering and we’ve been wanting to do something like this.”
The condition for Visceral to take a whack at the franchise name was for it to, “[build] an expansion pack before they do this so they understand what it takes to make aBattlefieldgame,” which it did.“It doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to annualizeBattlefieldand that’s the way it’s going to be forever and ever,” Söderlund explained. Well, I’m convinced. Or, wait. No. The other thing.
While Visceral plumbs battlefields and works onStar Wars, what aboutDead Space? “Do I think that we will create aDead Spacegame again? Yes, I think so,” Söderlund said. “But when we do so, we have to think about what made the previous ones successful and how we go about envisioningDead Spacefor a new generation.
“Now, I’m not announcing aDead Spacegame. We’re not building one just to be very clear, but I’m saying is there an opportunity or possibility to do one in the future? Absolutely.”
Battlefield: Hardline doesn’t mean Battlefield will be annualized, EA says[Polygon]
