Few months back in an Investor’s meeting at Electronic Arts, the executives had a deep discussion where they openly talked about their interest towards going for Frostbite Engine, as their single starting Engine with authority under Chief Operating officer, Andrew Wilson.
Wilson further explained that the Company had a history of using almost twenty engines at a time, but now they have made their mind just for one. The essence of using just one engine lies in the fact that in a scenario where you are developing Game not just for one platform but for twenty or thirty platforms, where you are required to make transitions once in every six months, a single engine facilitates in all these activities by conveniently launching the Games in all the available platforms that players have access to and that too in a cost- effective manner.
From technology moving at a very fast pace it is difficult to keep up with it. From PS2 to PS3 the cost almost doubled for the research and development work and what else the quality provided by Electronic Arts on the new platforms was not great in any manner, and the only reason being is heavy investments made by the company on every engine it has been working with. With switch to platforms the publisher managed to launch more titles with same flat cost and R&D cost.
The team believes that having one engine will be both cost- efficient and quick and would allow delivering high quality games. According to Wilson, investment in one engine will be going to pay more dividends in future, with multiple things working in favor for it. This would enable the team, “exponential leaps forward” in the ability to deliver “unbelievable games” every year.
The Vice President, Patrick S?derlund, also came up with his ideas, mentioning that initially Electronic arts used to have sixteen engines and that initiative of THE FROSTBITE was taken long time back some ten to twelve years ago.
As per the reports from Game informer and other multiple sources, FIFA, MADDEN, NHL,and NBA live sports will be moving to Frostbite Engine form Ignite engine. Though, this step would take a few years to implement. In the mean time EA is using Frostbite engine for its amazing game series like Battlefield, Dragon, Age, Mass Effect, Need for Speed, Mirror Edge and FIFA 17. Their next great move of moving to Frostbite engine will take place hopefully with Madden NFL 18 and it would take even some more time for NHL 18 to come to that category. The major reason for acceptance of Frostbite as the only engine for all game development also stands for the fact that DICE has already worked on the ANT animation system and integrated that in the Frostbite.