EA Studios Patrick Sonderlund recently spoke to GI.Biz where the subject of new IPs came up. It seems that we haven’t seen too many new IPs released from EA with this current generation of consoles compared to the last generation. That, however, doesn’t mean that EA’s development studios are not currently working on some new exciting projects.
There are a few elements that go into a new IP simply outside of a creativity standpoint. For instance, Patrick Sonderlund stated that simply developing assets and tools for development has gone up. With that, a team is dedicated to working on a set of creative tools for the purpose of prototyping.
“There’re two issues there, and I think the technology is a separate discussion. I think with our industry in general, there are maybe fewer titles today because the cost of development has gone up. At the same time, for us, I understand why it may appear that’s what we’re doing, if you look at what we have here (Gamescom). But we have a big portion of our workforce dedicated to new IP today. New IP that we haven’t shown yet.
For me, the technology is actually an enabler. With one technology, you can have a tools team focusing on ease of prototyping. Also, from an asset perspective, we have a database of Frostbite generated assets today that is humongous, so if a development team wants to conceptualise something or proof something, they can just take assets from any game we’ve shipped and start toying with them. It’s almost like a construction kit. That can be very helpful.”
Regardless, there are still new IPs in the works as Patrick once again points to BioWare with their new IP. Unfortunately, it’s unknown just what this IP is about, but it seems that we’re not too far away from a reveal for this video game.
“We’ve been very open about the fact that Bioware is working on a new IP, and we’ll get to talk about that in the not too distant future. We have other teams working on new IP as well. I think it’s about a balance, right? Making sure that we continue to push what great looks like for Battlefield or FIFA or Madden – or Star Wars, for that matter – while continuing to invest in something new.”
As it stands right now BioWare is currently working on the next Mass Effect title, Mass Effect: Andromeda which is set to take place after the events of the first three Mass Effect video games. So far, this upcoming Mass Effect title does not have a detailed release date other than a launch window of the first quarter of 2017.
