The Swedish gaming portal FZ.se have posted an interview with BF1943 producer Patrick Liu and DICE Head of Design Lars Gustavsson. The topic is what we want to do with Battlefield 1943 and Bad Company 2 and handling of the BF franshice.

What has been the most challenging in the development of Battlefield 1943?
It was as hardest in the start, says Patrick. We ask ourselves “What is Battlefield?” but there is no easy answer. It’s about nailing the feeling but it’s hard to say exactly what it is. We tried to capture the feeling of playing BF1942, recreating that experience.

The article is in swedish but I got a translated version after the jump!

Recently it was official that Dice was working on two new Battlefield games beyond Heroes. Of course that made us very curious so we get to their office for a talk about the news, old sins and what we can expect from the new projects.

The very successful Battlefield series is in constant expansion. The free game BF Heroes is being tested actively and now that Dice recently announced Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 1943 no less than 3 new titles are on their way. We visited the Dice office in a chilly Stockholm for a talk with the persons in charge. Lars Gustavsson, creative director responds on questions about Bad Company 2 and the producer Patrick Liu talks about his “little baby” BF1943. Let’s start with Lars’ project.

Bad Company 2 builds on last summer’s console exclusive and story driven action game. Until now most things about Bad Company 2 have been a secret. Unfortunately we have to establish that that’s still the case – Dice shows us a movie and talks a bit about the title, among others that the destruction function has been refined and that there’s more environments to fight in (a snow landscape among a few others) but I don’t get an opportunity to play it. This time however there’s a Windows version on the menu (the first game was a console exclusive). Lars explains why.

It’s about risk management. Bad Company was new for us in a lot of ways. It was a completely new game, it was driven by a new game engine on new platforms. It was a single player game and destruction was a big part of it. There really was a lot of new things. Even if our roots are in the PC world we can’t risk everything just to keep making PC games.

This time we’re on safer ground, he continues. We know the engine and we can thereby build the game on experience. It’s basically the same code, and now that we are familiar with it we can do a better game. We have gotten a lot of feedback, among others how destruction works and what is good and bad with that function. It’s the same thing as with our earlier games, everything built on already existing code is easier to make. Vietnam is built on the 1942 code, 2142 on the BF2 code and so on.

Is there any difference between the platforms?
I can’t say any specific things. The goal is the make a game as good as possible for every platform. If there’s something we feel we can’t be 100% pleased about, we won’t do it. That’s why the first Bad Company wasn’t released for the PC.

About the story, characters and similar it’s still “no comment” that applies. More information will most likely follow, but for now it’s rather quiet and our attempts to unravel the story gets short answers.

People that haven’t played Bad Company will jump straight into the second game’s story. Will they miss anything?
I can’t say anything about the story yet. But one thing doesn’t exclude the other…

Over to Patrick Liu and Battlefield 1943. If you want to be picky you could claim that the game isn’t new at all. It’s about a undergrown new version of BF1942, with 3 maps (Wake Island, Iwo Jima and Guadacanal) that is sold over the internet with support for a maximum of 24 players.

The structure is simpler than before – only three player classes, automatic health recovery etc – but the developers are very determined that it still takes skill to master. I tried to play some Wake Island about a month ago and this time the classic has been switched to the not as well used Iwo Jima. The biggest difference from the original is playing with a gamepad (we’re testing the 360 version), but the biggest feeling is a kind of déjà vu. Which is positive.

What has been the most challenging in the development of Battlefield 1943?
It was as hardest in the start, says Patrick. We ask ourselves “What is Battlefield?” but there is no easy answer. It’s about nailing the feeling but it’s hard to say exactly what it is. We tried to capture the feeling of playing BF1942, recreating that experience.

BF1943 have support for a maximum of 24 players. A lot of people are annoyed and want at least 64. What do you tell them?
BF1943 will be a true PC game, with all it stands for. It’s not a bad port, I can promise it will make the PC players happy. About the player numbers, I’m going to guess people will be satisfied anyway.

The above is said with emphasis and Patrick is very clear that it’s a game experience worthy of the series earlier titles.

The game is released with only three maps. It smells like DLC…
There are actually no real plans for that. BF1943 is a bit of an experiment for us, we’re trying our way through. But there is support for downloadable content in the engine so it’s possible there wight be DLC later on.

The game will be sold over the internet; the console versions through Xbox Live and Playstation Store. In what ways the PC version will be sold isn’t clear at the moment but it’s leaning towards the “well established”. The exact price is something Dice doesn’t want to talk about but it’s going to be on the same level as corresponding titles, which should be somewhere around 200 SEK as the most. ($25, £17, €18)

The Battlefield games have made Dice into a respected name. But they have also received criticism , mostly for bad support and plenty of game bugs. I ask both Lars and Patrick what their position is for the criticism.

To a large part we have earned the criticism, Lars says. We are a company that have grown very fast and have opened several new offices in a short time. That’s of course not an excuse to make buggy games but that’s the way it is. We are continually working on improving. Battlefield is very close to my heart – I’ve worked with the series for the last 10 years. We do everything we can to improve with updates and bugs and I really want to get rid of the rumours that our games are buggy.

I agree with the criticism, we have been doing a bad job with the patching, Patrick explains.There are no excuses for that, that’s how it looks. But we are very aware of that and we have improved. At the same time old sins hang around, it’s hard to get rid of a reputation like that. I think it is partly because our target audience is very competitive, those that play World of Warcraft as an example aren’t as sensitive at all. That doesn’t excuse our faults, but I think that is why we have received so much criticism.

I’ve gotten used to not ignore those that are criticizing, Lars continues. The important thing is that our customers are happy. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly how many are satisfied and not with our games, to see the extent of the problem. But we’re not ducking for problems and I think we have improved a lot compared to earlier.

What do you say to those that are screaming for Battlefield 3?
I understand and respect them, Lars explains. But I can’t say anything about it. Now we’re talking about Bad Company 2 and try new ways with that.

Patrick adds:
I have nothing to say about that. But I can say that Battlefield 1943 isn’t the next big Battlefield game.