DICE confirms five Battlefield titles in development

At GDC Paris today, Ben Cousins, executive producer at EA's DICE studio, has confirmed that the team is currently working on no less than five titles in its Battlefield franchise.

EA announced at the start of the year its first entry in the free-to-play market would be Battlefield Heroes, and the publisher is set to release Battlefield: Bad Company for home consoles this Friday.

But the team is also at work on three other games based on the series, including a traditional core game aimed at consoles, and a new collaboration with Neowiz specifically for the Korean market.

"Since the start of this year I've been working as executive producer for the entire Battlefield franchise - we've got five titles in development at the moment, which is probably more than you expect," Cousins told the GDC Paris audience during his keynote presentation.

Battlefield publisher Electronic Arts holds a 19 per cent stake in Korean outfit Neowiz – which operates FIFA Online in the region for EA – and the two companies announced last year that they intend to co-develop four more titles for Asia, with Neowiz set to publish two of the projects in Korea and Japan.

Cousens told GamesIndustry.biz recently that the desire to work in the free-to-play market came from a business trip to South Korea and analysis of the region which showed piracy had destroyed the traditional publishing model.