This person, who no longer works at the studio, believes that Call of Duty‘s earlier successes inspired DICE to create its own game.
When it comes to rivalry, there is no better example than that between Call of Duty and Battlefield. The two largest and most expensive franchises cover wars of the past, present, and future, so it was only natural that they would compete. David Goldfarb, the lead designer of Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2, even found ways to throw in a few jabs in the script.
Goldfarb said that DICE pushed itself to do things it might not have done otherwise. This was especially true during the era of the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare titles, which Goldfarb describes as huge games. Even when Goldfarb joined DICE, Call of Duty still cast a shadow over things. However, the rivalry had a negative side, mainly putting pressure on senior management.
“Even lines I wrote in Bad Company 2 are in it. They’re in a chopper, and Sweetwater says, ‘He’ll just send some Special Ops douchebags with pussy-ass heartbeat monitors on their guns instead of us.’ That’s a direct reference to Modern Warfare. I did take the piss out of those guys more than once. Not because I didn’t like them, but because I did. I’ve never seen a shooter executed at the level of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and I probably never will again. They were almost works of art. We couldn’t compete with that, so we had to do our own thing.
I came on to work on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as the lead designer. However, that’s not what happened. Bad Company 1 was delayed because Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was so successful. So, we spent more time working on the first Bad Company game. Then, I think I worked on Mirror’s Edge. The negatives are usually, ‘Well, we need to sell X units, and they’re going to sell Y.’ The competition meant that Electronic Arts wanted DICE to do things that maybe weren’t the best for the game,” said Goldfarb.
Goldfarb no longer works at DICE, but the rivalry continues. This time around, Battlefield 6 seems to be leading the way, breathing new life into the long-running series while Call of Duty has stalled somewhat.
Source: PCGamer
