Battlefield isn't set to become an annual franchise like Call of Duty, EA Studios Vice President Patrick Söderlund has said.

Speaking to Polygon at E3, Söderlund says that Hardline is considered an opportunity to let developers make a cop game they've always wanted to make.

The idea of a cops and robbers type Battlefield game has been with us — me and the DICE team — for more than ten years. There are early prototypes from, like, 2000 or 2001 of a game that we called back then Urban Combat. This has been lingering and we've been wanting to do something like this.

While this has lead to a release only one year after that of Battlefield 4, such a schedule won't be the norm, Söderlund said.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we need to annualize Battlefield and that's the way it's going to be forever and ever," he said. "I understand that some people may look at it that way but that's what happened

The EA that I'm trying to help build isn't an EA that needs to annualize everything

Battlefield: Hardline will release October 21 on PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC.