EA, DICE Announce Battlefield: Bad Company

Major developer and publisher Electronic Arts has announced that its Swedish-headquartered Digital Illusions CE (aka DICE) development studio is currently working on a next next-generation console title set in the popular Battlefield series. Titled Battlefield: Bad Company, the game is currently in development for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 for release in 2007. Officials from Electronic Arts have confirmed that the new game is being created using the new in-house Frostbite game engine. In addition, in contrast to earlier games in the Battlefield franchise, which focused primarily on the multiplayer campaign and had players take the roles of different types and classes of military soldiers, Battlefield: Bad Company will instead place much of its emphasis on the single player portion. The game will center on a squad of renegade soldiers who fight for money and revenge, and will feature a narrative that EA notes will be “loaded with adventure and dark humor.” However, despite the game's focus on the single player element, EA also noted that Battlefield: Bad Company will feature a wealth of multiplayer options which will take advantage of the game's destructible environments. Battlefield: Bad Company marks the second Battlefield game currently under development by DICE, with Battlefield 2142 currently scheduled to ship for the PC this October. “The heart of DICE's multiplayer games is the frenetic, unpredictable nature of the sandbox experience, where anything could happen at any moment, and that's what we're bringing to the core of Battlefield: Bad Company's single-player campaign,” said Karl Magnus Troedsson, senior producer at DICE. “In a world that's 90 percent destructible, the gameplay possibilities are infinite -- the battlefield is always changing, forcing players, teammates, and enemies to react accordingly. Gamers will have total freedom to adapt to and tackle challenges in creative Battlefield-style ways.”