It won’t be long before the beta for Star Wars Battlefront goes live, and as its November release draws closer, DICE seems quite happy about taking on a project that’s both driven by passion and not Battlefield. However, in a recent interview with OXM, General Manager Patrick Bach has revealed that when the studio was approached to make Battlefront, it almost turned the project down because the team’s hands were full, but they managed to figure things out to accommodate it.
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.
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’. 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.
PSLS’ Heath Hindman previewed Battlefront at Tokyo Game Show 2015 and quite enjoyed his time with the game, but players can try it out for themselves on October 8 when the beta goes live. We also got a chance to interview Lead Hero Designer Jamie Keen who answered a bunch of questions that fans have been wanting to ask. You can read the full interview here.
Star Wars Battlefront is out on November 17 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
