A DICE developed reboot of the classic Star Wars action game franchise Star Wars Battlefront was pretty much something that all fans of Star Wars had wanted for a while, and amazingly enough, that is exactly what we are getting this November. But apparently, it could have gone a whole another way too, according to DICE themselves, who today revealed that they were hesitant on taking up the job.
“Disney came to EA looking for a partner to make games and suggested, “Maybe DICE should make a Battlefront game.” On our side, we had this opportunity but were fully booked with other work and thought, “Argh, we can’t do that!” But then the heart kicks in, says “we will figure it out,” and we figured it out. Because you can’t say no to a project like that,” said Studio General Manager Patrick Bach to OXM.
So how, then, did DICE manage to develop the game, considering its resources were already committed to other projects? “You piece it together based on competence, passion, availability – although that’s easier to fix, you need the right people in the right place to do the right “thing,”” he said. “Even though you don’t know what that is yet, you still have an idea of the concept. From that you say, “okay, we need this person or that person.” Then, of course, you have to hire a lot of people; you swap people around. Some people just won’t be interested; other people have been building Battlefield games for ten years and want to try something else. And other people say, “I would love to work on Star Wars, but… I don’t work for [DICE].” So it’s a mix of everything, a very organic process.”
I just hope Battlefront breaks the tradition of buggy game launches that the last few DICE games have all suffered from.