EA: Don't worry, Battlefield isn't going "kiddy"

BF 1943 Lead Producer says that Bad Company 2 will focus more on single player, further remakes possible.

By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Battlefield 1943 Lead Producer Patrick Liu has told Kikizo that the Battlefield franchise may "focus down again to the core" following its flirtation with the lighter, more accessible kinds of gameplay offered in Battlefield Heroes.

When asked in a new Kikizo interview whether Battlefield would continue to diversify along the same lines as the Need for Speed series, Liu commented: "I wouldn't say it's a certain future, to go broad - maybe it'll be the other way around actually, to focus down again to the core. We have plans, definitely, but I can't go into them now. A concern that a lot of fans have is that we're going "kiddy" with Battlefield, which isn't true. It's a segment right now, but it's in no way a certain future for the franchise."

He also suggested that further Battlefield remakes might be in store (1943 is essentially a nipped, tucked, online-only version of Battlefield 1942), but qualified this by saying that older titles were still very much in service.

"Maybe, but it's still very close," Yui hedged in response to queries about a Battlefield 2 remake. "BF 2 is still quite active, being played quite actively. 1942 is still being played as well still - when we researched for this [game], we just went onto the servers that are still up. There are not an awful lot of servers but there are a few up there. So we'll see. We don't have any plans right now to remake BF 2 and forward."

Single player campaigns, he concluded, will take on an ever-greater significance in future games, despite mixed critical receptions.

"Bad Company 2 is going to be even more focussed, I think, on single player than Bad Company 1 was. Bad Company 1 was really our first try at making a single player campaign, DICE haven't made that before. So we learned a lot of things making that game, and all that learning is going into Bad Company 2. So we will definitely try to improve and expand on the single player part of Battlefield."

Battlefield 1943 is out now on Xbox Live and tomorrow on PlayStation Network. A PC release is slated for September.