Battlefield 3 engine is too complex for mods, says developer.
DICE might be trumpeting Battlefield 3’s PC heritage, but it’s not including every mainstay of PC gaming. Speaking to German gaming site GameStar, DICE exec Patrick Söderlund delivered a blow to the modding community with the news that the studio was not planning to release any mod tools for the game.
According to Söderlund, DICE took the decision to leave out mod tools because Battlefield 3’s Frostbite 2 engine was just too complicated for modders to use. “It’s going to be very difficult for people to mod the game,” he said. “Because of the nature of the set up of levels, of the destruction and all those things … it’s quite tricky. So we think it’s going to be too big of a challenge for people to make a mod.”
Söderlund’s comments probably weren’t intended as a snub to the mod community, but it’s not hard to see why they might take it as such. They’re especially surprising however, when you consider that DICE is a developer that knows how skilled modders can be: DICE hired mod team/developer Trauma Studios to help create Battlefield 2 on the back of the team’s Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942.
But while it will undoubtedly be a hindrance, the lack of official tools is unlikely to stop the mod community; if they want to mod the game, they will. If anything, Söderlund’s comments might actually spur them on to make more content, just to prove him wrong.
Battlefield 3 comes out for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on October 25th.
Source: via PC Gamer