Nov 19

From Battlefield to Mass Effect: How one engine is shaping the future of EA Games

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After crossing under the elevated railroad viaduct that bisects a lush Azerbaijani forest from an industrial landscape, a squad of American soldiers gazes out at the valley that lies below. A saw-toothed horizon of half-assembled buildings juts out in the distance. It’s almost peaceful. Hundreds of seagulls chatter lazily overhead, blissfully unaware that the ensuing firefight will leave the seemingly forgotten structures looking somehow even worse for wear. Whole facades crumble under the hellfire of a military attack chopper. A grenade launcher’s explosive payload immediately contradicts the seemingly harmless thud it makes upon exiting the weapon’s chamber. An enemy scrambles for a new safe haven; his earlier hiding place no longer exists. By scene’s end, all that’s left are roiling flames and caustic black smoke.

This scene from the Battlefield 4 trailer was how the world, perhaps unwittingly, met Frostbite Engine 3, the next-gen toolset powering all of Electronic Arts’ non-sports games for the foreseeable future.

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Jun 13

Talking Frostbite, Battlefield 4 and Mirror’s Edge 2 with EA DICE’s big boss (video)

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Talking Frostbite, Battlefield 4 and Mirror's Edge 2 with EA DICE's big boss video

EA’s DICE studio is the motor that powers several of gaming’s most popular franchises. Need for Speed and Battlefield are just two of the enormous series that DICE’s Frostbite engine is behind, and EA’s pledged the engine’s support to many more of its titles. It’s with these things in mind that we met up with DICE General Manager Karl Magnus-Troedsson at E3 2013, where we discussed Frostbite 3, Frostbite Go, Battlefield 4 and even a little Mirror’s Edge 2 for good measure.

Troedsson had a headline spot during EA’s E3 stage briefing, where he helped to narrate a live demo of a 64-player match. Beyond a showcase for Battlefield 4, the presentation was perhaps the most stunning demonstration to date of the DICE studio’s Frostbite engine and the power it’s able to wield when harnessed by skilled developers. And for the first time ever on next-gen consoles, Battlefield‘s console versions (at least the next-gen ones) are identical with that of the PC one. Massive online battles and incredible in-game events — such as a Shanghai skyscraper being brought toppling down, all while naval scraps and helicopter dogfights are taking place — are possible on both PC and the next-gen boxes from Microsoft and Sony. We discuss all that and more with Troedsson in the video we’ve dropped just below the break.

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May 14

Battlefield 4’s Frostbite 3 game engine goes mobile in ‘Frostbite Go’

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It appears that while EA’s making claims that its Frostbite 3 game engine (which powers next-gen’s Battlefield 4) can’t run on Nintendo’s Wii U, the game publisher is also working on bringing “true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms.” The Frostbite website details the initiative as “Frostbite Go,” and calls it “one of our most exciting current projects.”

Without directly saying “Frostbite 3,” the blurb details Frostbite Go as aimed at “empowering EA game developers” — in so many words, it sounds like Frostbite Go isn’t meant for indies as much as it’s meant for EA studios used to working with Frostbite. Battlefield 4 will be the first game from EA to launch using the latest iteration of Frostbite, which isn’t a huge surprise considering that BF4‘s developed by the same folks who develop the engine (EA DICE). It’s expected to arrive this fall on both current and next-gen platforms.

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Via: Game Informer, NeoGAF

Source: EA

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May 08

Next-gen EA games will skip Wii U due to performance issues with Frostbite engine

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EA's new Frostbite 3 engine isn't coming to the Wii U, says developer

EA’s Frostbite 3 engine, which underpins many of the company’s next generation titles, looks like it won’t support Nintendo’s Wii U. Johan Andersson, Technical Director of the Frostbite project at EA DICE, says the company tested Frostbite 2 on the console and found the results to be “not too promising,” to the point where it “chose not to go down [the] path” of porting the next version. Leaked slides from earlier this year revealed that EA has approximately 15 games in development that use Frostbite 3, the implication being that Wii U gamers are going to miss out on some fairly big titles, including Battlefield 4, Star Wars, the next Mass Effect and, as Joystiq pointed out last week, this year’s version of Madden NFL. It all adds up to a notable loss of support for the new console — but hey, EA-style gaming was hardly a core part of the Nintendo experience in the first place.

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Via: Joystiq

Source: NeoGAF, @repi (Twitter)

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