DICE's general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson reckons first-person shooter developers and audiences are tiring of the present day. Or, to put that another way, one of Black Ops 2's biggest competitors has just validated its choice of premise.
"I think we're going to start seeing people moving away from the modern setting, because every now and again settings or themes start to get stale and then everyone jumps over," Troedsson told Edge this week. "Y'know, at some point dinosaurs are the hottest thing and everyone is making games with dinosaurs, but there are trends. It used to be WWII, and recently it's been the modern era and people are now moving towards near future."
"I think it's our responsibility as game developers to always push ourselves when it comes to the experience of games," Troedsson concluded. "To always make sure that when we put games in the hands of consumers that we are proud of what we've done.
Whatever timeframe it finds itself in, DICE will continue to compete via sheer emotional overload. "I'm not saying we're going to build an FPS that will make you cry, or anything like that. But we want people to be amazed when they look at our games.
"And I think this is more important than becoming number one in whatever way you look at it - though naturally part of that comes from a very high level of competitiveness here within DICE. We want to make the best game that we can, and we want that game to be the best one on the market. If gamers think that, then we've done our job. We're not there yet, but we're working on it."
I'd take a Battlefield with dinosaurs, DICE. Whenever you're ready.
6 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 5 Jul '12 said:
I'm sure he wants people to be amazed when they play his games rather than be amazed by how they look, otherwise he's not filling anyone with hope. It's a bit off for him to say everyone is moving towards the near future... it seems only CoD is doing this, all the other games set in the future have been there for a while, as it were. It's also a bit odd that he is saying this after he released bf3s single player in a boring middle east setting, after such a good SP in Bad Company 2 too set in south america.
I also hope he is on about battlefield with dinosaurs rather than going into the future to compete with cod, otherwise it's just really unimaginative again.
Plamsa wing on 5 Jul '12 said:
I wouldn't mind another spin-off like 2142, I hate these modern and "near future" FPS more and more, they just seem so boring.
They need to go back to the drawing board, lets have a FPS that's a little silly again, like Bad Company 1 and not Bad Company 2. I'd actually rather watch the news or eat glass, rather than play Battlefield 3 again, it wasn't really anything new for this one.
So yes go ahead and make a spin-off with dinosaurs and forget "realism" for a while, go a little mad with idea's once in a while, it'll pay off I'm sure.
*Cough* Just don't touch robot pirate alien dinosaurs with laser beams on their heads, that's my idea. *Cough*
Darth Mousemat on 5 Jul '12 said:
I'd like some sort of merge game, with a scifi twist. Maybe a BF game where a modern squad, with modern weapons and technology get Thoomed back to WW2, or vice versa.
Grummy on 5 Jul '12 said:
I would like a return to WW2 if I'm honest. Dice did a fantastic WW2 level at the beginning of bad company 2, so I'd love to see them manage a full game.
I expect it would be pretty special.
And no, 1942 doesn't count.
GHOSTY05 on 5 Jul '12 said:
You still can't beat bfbc2 Vietnam!!
Shackman on 6 Jul '12 said:
He's just laying the groundwork for the release of the BF2142 mod for BF3, similar to the BF:V mod for BC2.
Hmm, after re-reading the above I don't think there were enough acronyms there.