Battlefield 3 dev says modern FPS setting getting "stale"

DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson believes first-person shooters need to do more to innovate. Before Modern Warfare hit the scene the big time period in first-person shooters was World War II, but these days players can't get enough of fictionalized versions of current conflicts. Troedsson called out the modern setting as one way FPS developers have been resting on their laurels.

"I think we're going to start seeing people moving away from the modern setting, because every now and again settings or themes start to get stale and then everyone jumps over," Troedsson told Edge Online. "You know, at some point dinosaurs are the hottest thing and everyone is making games with dinosaurs, but there are trends. It used to be WWII, and recently it's been the modern era and people are now moving towards near future."

"But it's a bit cheap to just say, 'Okay, we're going to switch and go back in time or into the future and that will be innovation'. It will definitely drive the franchise forward for whatever game, but it's not true innovation, it's more a thematic change that has a perceived value to the gamers out there. But as a developer you can only make so many games in one particular era, and then you personally start to get a bit bored with it," he added.

Troedsson said that developers need to push themselves, technically and thematically.

"I think it's our responsibility as game developers to always push ourselves when it comes to the experience of games. To always make sure that when we put games in the hands of consumers that we are proud of what we've done," he said.

"We want people to be amazed when they look at our games. We want to make the best game that we can, and we want that game to be the best one on the market. If gamers think that, then we've done our job. We're not there yet, but we're working on it."