14 DAY TRIAL // Andrew Wilson, the chief executive officer of publisher Electronic Arts, says that his company is doing the right thing by delaying the launch of Battlefield Hardline because it allows the development team to make the experience something that the player base will actually enjoy when the game is finally out.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz the CEO says that Visceral Games wanted to bring players in earlier to take a close look at the experience of the first-person shooter and deliver important feedback and they chose to listen to the requests for more depth.
The executive states, “the beta was very stable, so we'd solved a bunch of the problems that existed in Battlefield 4. But what people said to us was, ‘This is pretty cool, but we think you should go deeper. We want more out of this.’ So we've given the team more time. That's a tough decision to make, and it has a financial impact in the near-term, but long-term, for the player and the franchise, that's the right decision.”
Battlefield Hardline was supposed to launch in late October in order to compete directly with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare from Sledgehammer Games and Activision.
At the moment, the title is set to be launched in early 2015 and will probably arrive in March, which seems like a good month for titles that are pushed back from their original date.
The Battlefield community has reacted with mixed feelings to the delay, but most seem to be content to wait a little bit more in order to make sure that the title does not have the issues that the fourth full game had on launch.
Andrew Wilson adds, “The reality is that we come to work every day and challenge ourselves and our teams to do creative and innovative things. What I can say, however, is that living up to that commitment to engagement and action I mentioned before means that we will make tough decisions in service of the player.”
He acknowledges that future game launches might have problems but says that Electronic Arts is committed to limiting their impact and to working with the community to deliver quick updates and fixes.
Visceral Games has promised that Battlefield Hardline will have both a solid single-player campaign, with a TV like structure, and a complex set of multiplayer modes that will be modelled on the battle between criminal gangs and law enforcement agencies over the drug trade.