DICE producer Patrick Liu feels that the single player campaign has now become an integral part of the Battlefield games, and that co-op might soon follow suit. He, however, says that Battlefield 3 is the true sequel to Battlefield 2, and will cater to all kinds of fans who follow the series.
“Battlefield 3 is the true successor to Battlefield 2, and it meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” he told Gamasutra. “We always set a very high expectation of ourselves in raising the bar of the game, and that pushes us more than anything else.
“I think we wanted to have a lot of variety, and different flavors within the game, so we could appeal to different kinds of gamers, and the co-op was one of those things that we identified as like, ‘We probably need this.
“A lot of people want to play together, and they don’t want to compete.’ So we offer that because of that.”
He continued: “”We are trying to grow the franchise in different ways, always, and to do something new for us, whether it’s a feature like the destruction that was added in Bad Company or the single player that was also added in Bad Company.”
“Since then, it’s grown and grown as a franchise. Single player has become a core pillar now, and we’re adding coop for the first time. We’ll see what happens with that; if people like it, if it’s fun, it will probably grow into a core pillar, as well.”
He went on to talk about the multiplayer component of the game and how it’s not restricted, and doesn’t force the players to do anything they don’t want to: “Nothing is really forced upon you — nothing in multiplayer — but we give you the tools to cooperate and work together. Same thing with co-op; it’s much more fun to play with someone else, and we give you the tools to do that.”
Battlefield 3 releases later this month for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Stay tuned for more info.