Battlefront 2015: DICE’s Karl Magnus Troedsson Interviewed!

Battlefront Elite Squadron

Gameplay footage and screenshots of the new Battlefront title may not come out until next year’s Star Wars Celebration VII (provided that publisher Electronic Arts doesn’t tell their subsidiary, DICE, to sneak in a surprise reveal before that time). However, DICE’s CEO was willing to share a bit of information about the development process of the highly-anticipated title in this week’s issue of Market for Home Computing and Video Games. He is noticeably confident about the direction of the project.

 

The 2015 game, anticipated as the first true successor to 2005’s popular Battlefront II, is the first PC/home console game that the series has had in years after a series of portable console spin-offs hit the market. DICE’s involvement with the Battlefront franchise (which was spun off from their own Battlefield series) had been described as being “a match made in Heaven” by Patrick Söderlund, Vice President of EA Studios. DICE’s own CEO, Karl Magnus Troedsson, continues to assert that the development team is having a blast with working on the project.

[We always try to] surpass what we’ve done in the past. We don’t shy away from wanting Battlefield to be the preferred choice in the first person shooter genre. When we approach something like Battlefront, there’s only one way for us to think about it and that’s: we are going to build the best Star Wars game ever created, if nothing else because Star Wars deserves it.

Battlefront also represents DICE’s first foray into making a licensed game since 2002, and DICE has been insistent upon creating on their own intellectual properties over playing in somebody else’s sandbox, so to speak. However, the promise of being able to work on a major Star Wars title was one that was too good to pass up for the EA subsidiary, and they decided to make a game worthy of the franchise’s name. Troedsson has stated that Lucasfilm has been very cooperative and helpful for making a Star Wars game that is true to the experience of the films.

Historically DICE hasn’t worked on licenses that are not our own. So this is different for us. If someone came to us with another license then we’d probably say no but, in this case, Star Wars has a very special place in our heart. So when the chance to work on this game came up, we grabbed it. But that comes with different kind of dependency that we haven’t had for a long time as we’re working with someone else’s IP. But LucasFilm has been absolutely spectacular. Everyone is approaching this with the same idea – that we are going to create the best Star Wars game ever.

The game is still on-track to have a 2015 release that will coincide with Star Wars Episode VII.

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Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

Grant Davis (Pomojema)

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

12 thoughts on “Battlefront 2015: DICE’s Karl Magnus Troedsson Interviewed!

  • July 19, 2014 at 7:38 pm
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    Firstly, apologies to Pomajema (and his well written article)for going off-track here.
    Nightsisters would be great villains (or allies) for SW7 and it’s sequels.
    This is a link to an excellent article on Nightsisters for those who don’t know who or what they are.
    http://tinyurl.com/nwywtnu

    • July 19, 2014 at 8:01 pm
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      I concur (and I don’t mind you bringing them into this page, as I like the Nightsisters).

      To the people that dislike the Nightsisters, I would recommend that you watch an episode of The Clone Wars called “Massacre”, in which they raise an army of their undead brethren to fight invading Separatists (with Grevious actually being badass again, as an added treat), and their leader uses voodoo on Darth Tyranus from across the Galaxy. It’s a pretty metal episode, and it displays a different kind of threat than anything we’ve seen in the movies.

      • July 19, 2014 at 10:25 pm
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        I honestly thought the whole zombie thing in that episode was stupid and written by a person(s) who was never seen Star Wars before.

        • July 19, 2014 at 10:59 pm
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          It was written by George Lucas’s daughter. I doubt she would never have watched a Star Wars movie in her life, considering that her adoptive father, you know, started the franchise.

      • July 19, 2014 at 10:42 pm
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        IMO, it’s not a matter of liking or disliking the NS of Dathomir. It’s a matter of filling the huge gap left by the Sith (if they’re truly gone for good, that is), and I don’t see the NS being good enough for that.

        In fact, I don’t think any order, cult, sect, race or organization that we’ve seen so far (be it official canon or EU stuff) is good enough to replace the Sith; not the NS, the Mandalorians, the Vong, or anything of the kind.

        To me, going with something completely new that we’ve never seen before, is the best way to go. It’s risky, but then again making a whole new SW trilogy is already a huge risk, in and of itself.

  • July 19, 2014 at 8:15 pm
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    The number of young female actresses already on-board (there may be more to come) might suggest a female group of some sort is part of the SW7 plot. It’s possible if that is the case, they could be Dathomirian Witches/ Nightsisters.

    • July 19, 2014 at 9:31 pm
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      I’ve just gotten to the Night Sister storyline in series 3 of The Clone Wars and I can definitely see them being a brilliant choice in the movies.

      • July 19, 2014 at 10:20 pm
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        I think they’re even better in Seasons 4 and 5, based on what I’ve heard. Like I said earlier, “Massacre” was an awesome episode.

  • July 19, 2014 at 10:48 pm
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    I honestly thought the whole zombie thing in that episode was stupid and written by a person(s) who was never seen Star Wars before.

  • July 20, 2014 at 1:44 am
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    The more I hear about Battlefront the more I think it’s scope and scale will be greater than we are anticipating.

    Maybe a full single player campaign isn’t out of the question.

    As for the Night Sisters… I would treat them very differently in the movies than the CW. Return them to a mysterious swamp/dead forest dwelling force witches. While they can be a threat to the heroes I think it’d be even cooler if the heroes had to visit them for information about some greater evil. One even the witches fear.

  • July 20, 2014 at 10:12 am
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    They need to keep the class setup very specific, weapons and attachments to a minimum. No vehicles upgrades. Maybe even no unlocks at all and no DLC weapons. I want this game to be simple and fun like the old Battlefront games.

  • July 23, 2014 at 10:53 am
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    NightSisters (EU and Clone Wars) is like when a TV show jumps the shark. Star Wars is getting cheesyer all the time Ep7: The Last Chance

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