Electronic Arts recently acquired the rights to develop all of the Star Wars games, on PC and consoles and it looks to be taking full advantage of that. A new Los Angeles Branch of DICE has been created, and their sole mission is to create Star Wars games.
Dice are of course well known for their Battlefield series, but the this new branch has been created to continue working on existing Star Wars games, and create new franchises too. Karl-Magnus Troedsson, the boss over at DICE told The Wall Street Journal
Perhaps hope is not lost for fans of the Star Wars: Battlefront series afterall? The series was being previously handled by Free Radical Design (who’re now known as Crytek UK), but LucasArts have since told them “nope, no more of that” much to the bitter disappointment of fans.
DICE LA will be a nice place to work, according to Troedsson:
Managers work closely with their staff, and even offer long parental leave to care for their children. He is also hoping to tempt talent from Activision’s own LA studios – Infinity Ward along with Treyarch. I’m sure it doesn’t take much to figure that’d be a huge boon for the Battlefield developers, to steal key talent away from the Call of Duty series creators.
“There is an extreme talent pool over that we want a part of,” Troedsson said. “It’s no secret that our main competitor is there.”
Sadly, because these games seem to be developed via the Frostbite 3 engine, Wii U owners will likely miss out as it has been revealed that Frostbite 3 isn’t compatible with Nintendo’s hardware.
Perhaps I am the only one still holding out for a ‘proper’ sequel to Star Wars: Knights Of the Old Republc… the MMORPG wasn’t enough!
