When EA announced that DICE would be working on a new Star Wars: Battlefront title, it sent waves of joy through the Star Wars fanbase, content with the knowledge that one of the most critically acclaimed developers in recent history would be taking over the franchise. Patrick Söderlund, the boss of EA Games, was particularly thrilled with the pairing. As he proclaimed in a recent interview with CVG, the pairing "just feels right" and that DICE was eager to work on the franchise:
"The DICE guys Karl Magnus Troedsson and Patrick Bach were talking and I told them we were in dialogues with Disney over this deal and they just looked at me and said, 'Why haven't you spoken to us? What are you doing? We want to make Battlefront.'"
Söderlund noted that the studio's request was not anticipated by EA, but the publisher was thrilled that DICE was so eager to take over the Battlefront series.
"DICE is a very particular place and they are very proud of what they do and you don't really tell them what to do. I didn't anticipate them wanting to work on a license - they've always been new IP or their own IP. But they were just like, 'we would kill to make this game' and the whole studio started talking about it like, 'please give us this game'. That's when I called Frank [Gibeau, EA Labels boss] and I realised we had something here. 'If they want it that badly, then the game will be freaking awesome - we have to figure it out'. So we figured it out, we got them the game and it was that simple. They begged to do it, the opportunity was there and that's exactly why you'll see a game that will be what it needs to be."
EA and Disney currently have an exclusive deal in which EA will develop multiple Star Wars titles. In addition to Battlefront 3, Dead Space studio Visceral Games is working on an untitled Star Wars title.