While it's no secret that Battlefield 2042 had a rocky launch, developer DICE is holding its own. At the moment it will only work on Battlefield 2042 and no other projects, such as games like Mirror's Edge.
“We are only focusing on Battlefield 2042,” Coutaz told GI.Biz. "There's no time for anything else and that's what we want to do. In three years, we want to be the first-person shooter powerhouse that DICE deserves to be, and that's our goal."
DICE is best known for the Battlefield series, but since its acquisition by EA in 2006, it has branched out from time to time. Along with Mirror's Edge, his past adventures also include Medal of Honor (2010), the rebooted Star Wars Battlefront series Mirror's Edge, and its less well-received sequel Mirror's Edge Catalyst. While Coutaz won't deny that the studio will return to other projects in the future, we shouldn't expect anything anytime soon.
food for thought
Coutaz finds himself in a strange position, having joined last December after the release of Battlefield 2042 and is now responsible for getting the game back on track. Still, this interview shows that he is clearly taking responsibility, reflecting on the post-DICE release mood.
"The launch of Battlefield 2042 didn't go as planned," says Coutaz. "Our players and our community were disappointed, but so was our development team." Admitting that quitting the game was never an option, DICE enlisted the help of other EA studios to assess what went wrong and how to fix it.
“This analysis took us a few months and we are in the process of correcting it,” continues Coutaz. "We are reorganizing, we are restructuring, we are improving the processes, we are adapting them to be able to do these monster games that we are doing in co-development... and we are also working on the hybrid model."
She admits that "it's far from perfect and we still have a lot to learn," but overall, Coutaz paints a more optimistic picture for the future of the game. With the release of Battlefield 1 Season 2042 previously pushed back two weeks, such Maybe things finally turn around for DICE's latest effort.