Electronic Arts may not have introduced too many new IPs at its E3 press conference, but with a new Mirror's Edge and Battlefront game underway, it didn't really have to. The internet has been salivating over those two franchises for years, hoping beyond hope that the massive publisher would come through. Thanks to a CVG interview with Executive Vice President of EA Games Label Patrick Söderlund, we now know more about what was going on behind the scenes.
Söderlund admitted to CVG that DICE's involvement with the Battlefront remake "was almost not happening," but the managers at DICE spoke up about their interest in the franchise.
“DICE is a very particular place and they are very proud of what they do and you don't really tell them what to do,” Söderlund said. “I didn't anticipate them wanting to work on a license—they've always been new IP or their own IP. But they were just like, 'we would kill to make this game' and the whole studio started talking about it like, 'please give us this game.'"
As for the new Mirror's Edge , Söderlund said EA had always planned on revisiting the series, but it didn't have a clear vision of what that game should be until its current producer spoke up.
“I'll be honest with you: we've been looking at Mirror's Edge for many years and had small prototype teams and incubations around what it could be,” Söderlund said. “But it wasn't until Sara Jansson, who is now the producer on it, came to me and called Karl-Magnus Troedsson and said, 'listen, I have an idea for what this could be'. She presented a vision so inspiring that we were like, 'we have to build this now'.
“The interesting part is that it was a game that could only be built in gen 4 and that was cool. I liked that because what they're doing, it's not possible on the current generation.”
Söderlund said the original Mirror's Edge sold around 2.5 million copies, but suspects the new, open-world game they're making will have improved financial success. An open-world Mirror's Edge certainly sounds promising, but hopefully it doesn't run into the “5 millions copies sold or bust” situation Dead Space 3 ran into .
