Battlefield 4: DICE is serious about female characters

Female characters are proving quite the sticking point for forthcoming marquee shooters. Now Battlefield 4's executive producer Patrick Bach has explained that he hopes the franchise can one day fully incorporate female characters, but that DICE needs to work out how much it would have to "sacrifice" to make it possible.

Speaking with OXM, Bach said, "We have been talking about it quite a lot. We've been looking at how much it's worth, compared to how much we'd have to sacrifice.

"Because it's quite complicated, It's not just [creating] the actual character models, it's all the voice-over work. We have hundreds of thousands of lines that would need to be duplicated, because even now we're cheating quite a lot - we have random male voices, and then you have to multiply that by two. If we do it, we'll do it right, not just to tick a box or something."

The gauntlet has been thrown down by Call of Duty: Ghosts, which features female characters in its multiplayer. Infinity Ward claims that the engine has to be significantly reworked in order to make this possible.

We have a big interview with Patrick Bach coming soon to the site, so keep your eyes peeled.