When you think of Electronic Arts, innovative new IP aren't exactly the first thing to come to mind. Battlefield, Madden, FIFA – these are all recurring franchises that succeed both critically and commercially, but Battlefield 4's executive producer, Patrick Bach, believes that EA is too smart to just make cookie-cutter games going forward. Instead, he argues that now’s the right time to test out a few new properties.
“If you go too much towards the business end you'll start to create cookie-cutter games, and maybe EA came close to being that once upon a time,” Bach said to OXM. “I think they're clever enough to try to avoid that.
"I think the market is ready [for new IP]. EA has been scrutinizing everything that's going on within the company, trying to cut away things that don't make sense. You could argue that a new crazy IP doesn't make sense, but on the other hand that's what leads to great games. You just need the right crazy IP."
The dawn of a new generation might just be the perfect window to introduce new heroes, worlds, and gameplay mechanics to a captivated audience of early hardware adopters. We can expect a new Battlefront and Mirror’s Edge from EA down the line, but we might also see something even fresher before too long.