Good, good: Battlefield Hardline delayed to 2015

More time for multiplayer, single-player, and stability

Visceral Games is pushing Battlefield Hardline from October 2014 to early 2015 in order to better meet player feedback from the beta it ran this year. After Battlefield 4‘s troubled launch, I doubt any of us need to be convinced of why this is a good move.

All the same, DICE vice president and group general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson detailed a few key things this extra development time will enable:

• New ideas for multiplayer sourced from the community that will “evolve the cops and criminals fantasy into a truly unique Battlefield Multiplayer experience.” (That wording still weirds me out a bit.)
• More polished core features in Hardline‘s single-player campaign, including new features that’ll “support a deeper ‘crime revenge’ story experience.”
• “Stability,” aka the magic word. “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.”

Sounds reasonable enough, though I suspect there will be plenty of waiting and seeing with Hardline. I didn’t find the beta compelling — what was there seemed okay, but failed to grab me after a few rounds — but I’ll be down for the second beta whenever that arrives.

Why Battlefield Hardline will launch in 2015 [Battlefield]