EA: Battlefield and MOH games in annual rotation

EA studios Danger Close and DICE are both locked in a project rotation cycle that mirrors how Activision releases games from Treyarch and Infinity Ward.

Electronic Arts will "continue to follow our rotation strategy,” said games boss Frank Gibeau.

"In general, we’re giving studios a full two-year cycle to get a game built and polished to maximum quality,” he added.

It means the Los Angeles-based Danger Close is very likely building a new Medal Of Honor game, due for release in 2012, to follow up on its 2010 reboot of the series.

Sweden-based EA DICE will this year release Battlefield 3, and likely – providing the genre maintains its popularity – release a follow-up in 2013.

As quoted by CVG, Gibeau went on to say that the rotation would allow both EA studios to “maximise technology investments like [the high-end game engine] Frostbite 2”.

"The idea is to have that rotation happen with Battlefield and Medal of Honor and keep it fresh so you don’t burn the teams down or over-annualise the product lines,” Gibeau added.

The move means a new EA military shooter will be released each year to counter Activision’s rotation policy.

Infinity Ward and Treyarch each build new Call Of Duty titles every two years in the same alternating release pattern.

Meanwhile, EA Partner studio Respawn will be used to compete with Activision’s new partner Bungie.

Both independent developers are thought to be building sci-fi based FPS titles.

"Titles like Respawn – and I think the Insomniac title is a little bit more of an action game than a pure shooter – we’ll sprinkle those in where we see opportunistic gaps, either in a release schedule or in a genre standpoint," Gibeau added.