Speaking today at an investor briefing in Europe, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen discussed a number of interesting topics, two of which were the future of the Battlefield and Battlefront franchises.
Starting with Battlefield, Jorgensen confirmed that there won’t be another game in the series anytime soon. “We won’t have another Battlefield for a couple of years,” he said during a Nasdaq speaking event, suggesting the next one might not come until 2018 or later.
Though he didn’t give anything away about what this game will be, Jorgensen was asked how EA is thinking about further engaging players in the product. He was asked if the EA Sports Ultimate Team model could be applied to Battlefield–and it sounds like EA is cooking something up.
“We’re looking at all of our games and asking, ‘How might we provided additional opportunities for the player to engage?’ The players want to engage deeply in the game,” the executive said.
Jorgensen said you can poll EA executives and developers and they’ll tell you that driving engagement is the company’s principal focus for all of its games, ahead of financial considerations. At the same time, he pointed out that if people engage with a game more, “they may monetize more over time.”
Another key consideration is to keep the core gameplay intact. EA is “looking for ways to [deepen engagement] without disturbing the gameplay,” Jorgensen said, pointing out that FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode doesn’t take away from the bread and butter of the franchise.
Finding a way to add an Ultimate Team-style mode to Battlefield is overall a “great challenge” and an “exciting” one,” Jorgensen said.
“It’s not just about building another game. If we can build another stream of revenue that’s high-profit, it’s highly accretive to the overall company,” he explained.
Also during the event, Jorgensen discussed the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront sequel. Some criticized the game for not going deep enough, something that Jorgensen acknowledged in the past and again today.
“If there was criticism, they just wanted more,” he said. “So we’re taking that criticism to heart as we build the next game and trying to address any of the issues that they had.”
The first Battlefront, which shipped 14 million copies to become one of the best-selling Star Wars games in history, focused on characters and locations from the original trilogly. Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Leia, Darth Vader, etc. The sequel, however, will leverage “the new movies,” Jorgensen said (repeating what he said earlier), which should give the game an opportunity to reach a wider audience.
Overall, Jorgensen described Battlefront 2 as a “much bigger, much more exciting Battlefront.”
The game, which has not yet been formally announced, is reportedly due out in fall 2017. It’s being made by EA-owned studios DICE and Motive Studios.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 is not the only Star Wars project currently in the works at EA. Titanfall developer Respawn is making a third-person action adventure game, while Dead Space studio is making a Star Wars game, too, under the leadership of Uncharted director Amy Hennig.
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