Annualized Battlefield games would kill the franchise - DICE

EA has positioned Battlefield 3 as its Call of Duty killer this holiday season, but don't expect the military first-person shooters to go head-to-head every year. In a new interview with Gamerzines, Battlefield 3 executive producer Patrick Bach said that annualizing the franchise would be a mistake.

"EA would never force us to release a game every year," Bach told the site. "I think that would dilute the vision of the franchise, and you will eventually kill the franchise by doing that."

He did acknowledge that it might be possible in theory for the series to be split between multiple studios to alternate releases (the way Activision does with Call of Duty) but said there weren't plans to do that currently. He also appeared skeptical that it could be done without a drop-off in quality.

"To us, we need the time to be able to create the next game that consumers will hopefully like," Bach said. "If we were to release another big Battlefield title next year, that would mean that we'd have less than a year to build it, and that would mean that we'd have to have another studio building it for us, which would mean it wouldn't have that DICE seal of approval, which would mean they'd just have to release a copy of the game we just released. Ugh, no."

While the Battlefield franchise has maintained an annualized presence in recent years with spin-offs like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2010), the free-to-play Battlefield Heroes (2009), the downloadable Battlefield 1943 (2009), and the original Bad Company (2008), it will have taken the series a decade to see its third main entry. Battlefield 3 is set to launch October 25 in North America on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

For more on the game, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.