Electronic Arts' DICE studio has certainly been very busy around this time of the year. Although it is widely known as the creator of the Battlefield franchise of FPSs (First Person Shooters), the studio has also worked on the recently launched Mirror's Edge, which showed that, in terms of creativity, the development team can really go to great lengths. Thus, Mirror's Edge served to show us that you don't necessarily need a weapon to play a first person game.

However, besides the aforementioned title, the team has also been working on another shooter project, Battlefield Heroes, which promises players a whole new experience, especially because it is set out to be the first game in EA's new Play 4 Free strategy, namely, it will be free for anyone to download, and money will be made from advertising and microtransactions.

This new project promises to combine the great shooter mechanics of previous Battlefield titles with an amusing tongue-in-cheek approach to character design, as the entire game has a feeling of cartoon graphics, similar to Team Fortress 2. Although it was slated for a holiday season release this year, John Riccietiello, the CEO of EA, said some time ago that the game would appear in the summer of 2009, because the team still needed time to polish the social networking aspect.

Aleksander Grondal, the producer of Battlefield Heroes, recently talked with GamaSutra about the changes the game received, especially the new third person view. He went on to say that it was imperative that players could get a feeling that their character really interacted with the world, and that the changes they did to him would take effect.

"Initially there, were some concerns, with Heroes, that third-person was wrong for a Battlefield game, but I think that once you actually try to play around with it, it feels pretty much the same. Once you actually get the hang of it, it won't be such an issue anymore. The main thing about the third person: It's about seeing your character. I don't think many people are interested in investing in their physical, visual appearance of the characters when they never can see them. Seeing your character, and seeing that the new item that you have is actually on your character, adds a feeling of attachment to him, from a visual standpoint. The other thing is, we tried to make this more accessible, and I think that seeing your character in the world next to a barrel makes him more connected to the world."

Some quite interesting things, which might really attract a lot of players to this title. Let's just hope that the DICE team will use this period to the fullest and deliver a great game.