Battlefield 4 has not yet been released by DICE, but that has not prevented two of the leaders of the development team to discuss where the franchise's future, specifically Battlefield 5.
Patrick Soderlund and Patrick Bach sat down with The New York Times to discuss the flagship series and how to maintain the success the franchise has had. Soderlund revealed that future Battlefield games may have less of an emphasis on story, due to the unique geological and national nature of the development team at DICE:
"I hate to say this, but storytelling does not come naturally to Swedes...But we're good at designing systems, and that's what these games really are. Minecraft puts a box in front of you and says, 'Do whatever you want with it.' Battlefield is a system designed for entertainment rather than for telling you a story."
This sentiment was also given by Bach, who gave his own two cents on the role of story in the series' future:
"The story is just the coating on the game. The game is now the experience of playing it."
This is interesting to hear, considering the attention DICE has put on the single player campaign for Battlefield 4. While multiplayer has always been one of the key selling points of the series, these statements certainly seem to indicate that DICE may shift more and more to delivering a multiplayer experience over a single player campaign. Perhaps the next-gen consoles influenced this decision, as games such as Titanfall will attempt to combine multiplayer action with traditional storytelling elements to deliver a hybrid experience.
Bach added one more statement that seems to confirm this strategy, saying that the next Battlefield games will need more special effects and wow moments rather than an engaging story mode:
"More features. More extras. More destruction...Every new game needs to be the next big thing."
It will be interesting to see if Bach and Soderlund's words become fact, or if DICE finds a way to strike the right balance between single player and multiplayer game modes. Considering all the advances the new technology in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will allow, the temptation is there to push multiplayer modes even farther. However, it is hard to imagine the Battlefield series completely abandoning single player and story modes. Time will tell where DICE chooses to lead the series over the next few years.