Battlefield 3 lead designer leaves DICE

The Battlefield franchise has lost one of its top designers. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 lead designer David Goldfarb has told Kotaku that he has left DICE, the wholly owned Electronic Arts studio based in Stockholm, Sweden.

"It was time to move on for me," Goldfarb told Kotaku. "Fans have nothing to worry about."

As of press time, EA had not responded to GameSpot's request for comment regarding what impact Goldfarb's departure from DICE could have on the Battlefield series.

Goldfarb did not reveal where he is headed, but his personal blog has been chronicling his work on a new "Biblepunk" work of fiction.

"Today and yesterday I worked on cleaning up and reframing chapter 1 and 2," he wrote. "Mostly what this was was coming to grips with the old style of the book, which is this thing a friend of mine called 'Biblepunk' for lack of a better word. Or Old Testament noir."

Battlefield 3 launched in October 2011 to a warm critical reception and has shipped more than 15 million copies since launch. A series of downloadable content offerings for the modern-day shooter are planned for 2012, the first of which--Close Quarters--is available today.