Just days after DICE revealed that their Frostbite tests on the Wii U were not “promising” enough to pursue a version of Frostbite 3 for Nintendo’s console, the company has announced plans to make a version of the new game engine for mobile platforms.
As discovered by NeoGAF, a blurb on Electronic Arts’ Frostbite website has revealed DICE’s plans to develop the Frostbite Go engine for mobile devices. The statement reads in part:
“Frostbite 3 is a natural iterative evolution of Frostbite 2; it’s been in development since spring 2011. Battlefield 4 will be the first game to ship on Frostbite 3.”
“One of our most exciting current projects is called Frostbite Go, a mobile division empowering EA game developers with Frostbite’s proven excellent workflows and features to bring true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms.”
While no specific games were mentioned in the announcement, the new engine could potentially result in mobile versions of Frostbite 3 powered games, like Dragon Age, Battlefield 4, or any of EA’s upcoming Star Wars titles.
Of course, the announcement of the upcoming mobile engine comes as a slap in the face to Wii U owners foolish enough to believe that EA had really formed an “unprecedented partnership” with Nintendo. After all, if DICE is able to scale down some version of Frostbite for mobile gaming, it is hard to believe that the developer ran into so many technical problems on the Wii U that they had to give up.
The very existence of Frostbite Go seems to confirm that EA is just not interested in developing the bulk of their games for the Wii U. There is nothing wrong with making that business decision (which is probably the right call to make from a financial standpoint), but there is also no need to go around and blame the lack of a Wii U Frostbite engine on fabricated technical problems with Nintendo’s console.
Although, being honest with consumers could have put them at risk of losing their title as the Worst Company in America.
