Design director Dennis Brännvall has been chatting about the evolution of Star Wars Battlefront 2 to PCGamesN at Gamescom, and he feels that after a particularly disappointing launch, the game is now developing a solid base.
“The months after launch were probably the darkest period of my stay at DICE,” Brännvall admitted. “That was hard, and the community sentiment and playerbase probably plummeted around that time.” Recent updates have meant an uptick in players committing to the game, however. “It’s been steadily climbing every month since. It’s going really well, and it’s growing, sustaining.”
After working so hard to turn Star Wars Battlefront 2’s fortunes around, Brännvall says the team are in no rush to start working on a third game.
“Sequels are probably still viable otherwise people wouldn’t be doing them, but it’s not the same hunger as it used to be,” he explained, before adding, “We were so used to the chain of sequels, where we do a sequel then we do a season pass for a year then move onto the next game. I think the industry has changed on that …before it was very transactional and we made the game and we signed up for 4 DLCs and then that’s it. So then you focus on getting value to players out of what they paid for and if there was a system that wasn’t working then you put a pin in that and say we will fix it in the sequel. This time around we’re not doing it that way.”
Brännvall went on to reassure Battlefront 2 fans that they’ll see the team “really overhauling bits that aren’t working” and that they’re not “afraid of changing things” because if doing so serves to make the game better, the community will be happier overall.
Wireframe #21 is out now
