Zip-lining into 2015.
EA clearly doesn’t want another Battlefield 4 launch on its hands, so Battlefield: Hardline has been delayed until the beginning of 2015. That also handily frees up a bit of space in October which, quite frankly, was looking a bit mental for videogame releases.
In an extended blog post about the decision to delay Hardline’s release, DICE’s Karl Magnus Troedsson says that feedback from the beta “spurred us to start thinking about other possibilities and ways we could push Hardline innovation further.” That’s a polite way of saying the beta feedback for Battlefield: Hardline and general reception wasn’t exactly glowing.
Having all that lovely extra time should, in theory, allow DICE and Visceral to accomplish the following:
1. Multiplayer Innovation: Coming out of our E3 beta, internal focus tests, and work with our community, we have received a lot of great Multiplayer thinking. We’re going to be adding some new feature ideas direct from the community that will evolve the cops and criminals fantasy into a truly unique Battlefield Multiplayer experience.
2. Single Player Story Depth: In order to ensure our Single Player experience delivers on player expectations, we’re spending more time polishing our core features, as well as adding a few new ones that will support a deeper “crime revenge” story experience.
3. Stability: This has been a focus for our team since day one and we’re going to be using the extra time to continue to optimize the game for a stable launch. We have learned a lot from Battlefield 4, are continuing to learn from our Community Test Environment and will learn more from another Hardline beta. More time allows us to surface issues that the team can attempt to fix prior to launch.
Honestly, if this avoids another Battlefield 4 then it’s all in a fairly good cause.
