We don't know what it is yet, but it looks like EA has its heart set on a big open world action adventure of some kind. Speaking in a recent IGN interview executive VP of EA Studios, Patrick Söderlund, talked about the publisher's plans to make a "gigantic action game [...] like Assassin's Creed or Batman or GTA."
"If you look at the biggest segment in our industry, which is action, we don't have a lot," says Patrick, adding "EA is not known to make gigantic action games like Assassin's Creed or Batman or GTA or those types of games that are really big." It also sounds like whatever the publisher is planning could well already be underway: "The strategic direction that we put in motion is to expand our portfolio more into that segment." Unironically, having stated that he wants to copy rival games, he then adds that the idea is "to see what can we bring to gamers that maybe hasn't been done before."
There may well be a connection back to Assassin's Creed, too, with former co-creator Jade Raymond currently heading up new EA studio Motive. That outfit is currently helping with Amy Hennig's Star Wars project, a title that already fits into EA's big action ambitions (especially as that's a game starting to increasingly sound like 'Uncharted in space'). When asked if Jade's previous experience could be put to good use Patrick answered: "Maybe. [Jade Raymond] wanted to try something different. She wanted to build action games and we were going in that direction…. It kind of came together, and that's why we did it."
Whatever comes out of this, EA are at least being realistic. "I’m not suggesting we're going to go after GTA and sell 50 million units," admits Patrick. "We would love to! But what I'm saying is those types of absolutely AAA, big productions is what we want to do. And I think for us to do that, we need the right people."
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