A third installment in the Battlefield: Bad Company franchise will happen, creative director Lars Gustavsson told reporters at a Battlefield 4 event, clarifying that it won't happen immediately because of the recent spate of newly announced Electronic Arts DICE-developed titles.

"My feeling is that I would love to do it. For me, when we started the company with 1942, it was really a work of passion," Gustavsson said. "And then we worked our way through the era of different wars, and I loved them all, like my little babies. When it came to Bad Company, it was creative freedom; don't take yourself too seriously.

"So I love it. I want to see it again. Whether it can happen [right] now with the newly announced Mirrors Edge 2 and Star Wars: Battlefront... but we'll see," he said, referring to the new DICE-developed Mirror's Edge 2 and Star Wars: Battlefront titles that were announced for next-generation consoles during EA's E3 2013 press conference in June.

"But trust me, the Bad Company [team] isn't forgotten, they are just on a very long vacation," he continued. "So they are out there, they're coming back."

In August, Frank Gibeau, president of EA Labels said that EA will rotate between three main shooter franchises going forward: Battlefield, Titanfall and Battlefront. The publisher's former strategy of alternating between the Battlefield and Medal of Honor series included Bad Company titles.

Developed by EA DICE for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the jocular Battlefield offshoot series was first published in 2008. Its sequel, Bad Company 2, saw a release in 2010 followed by the Bad Company 2: Vietnam expansion pack that same year.