The WWIÂ Setting of Battlefield 1 Almost Didn’t Happen
EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen said that there were some concerns internally regarding the historical setting of Battlefield 1 due to the company’s relatively younger crowd. At the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2016 Global Technology Conference, as reported by Gamespot, Jorgensen said that, “We were worried that many of the younger consumers out there didn’t know that there was a World War II or Vietnam, so World War I….”
Initially, EA Executive Vice President Patrick Soderlund had rejected the idea of a WWI setting the team had pitched to him. He had disliked the aspect of trench warfare, and stated that “it can’t be fun to play.”
In the end, he was convinced otherwise. Elaborating on this, Jorgensen said, “I think what people don’t understand about World War I is the technology shift that went on during the war. People started the war on horseback and ended the war with airplanes and tanks and battleships and submarines. And that’s a huge opportunity for us to be able to do a video game around.”
World War I was, after all, a world war, and Jorgensen mentioned that this provided an opportunity for the content of Battlefield 1 to span the globe.
Despite earlier doubts, Battlefield 1 clearly shows some promise. At the time of writing, the Battlefield 1 trailer has 1.8 million likes to a measly 32K dislikes, as compared to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare‘s 430K likes to 2.7 million dislikes.
Battlefield 1 will be available worldwide on October 21.