The next Battlefield game will no longer be out late 2014 — EA announced today that it has delayed Hardline to next year.
Developed by Visceral Games, the studio best known for Dead Space, Battlefield: Hardline is centred around police warfare. It was originally scheduled to be out late 2014 for PC and current-gen and last-gen consoles (minus Wii U).
This delay comes in the wake of the disastrous Battlefield 4, which ran into all sorts of bugs and technical issues when it was released late 2013. Since then, EA has promised better things for the series, with EA boss Andrew Wilson mentioning to Kotaku boss Stephen Totilo the company’s newfound willingness to delay games that they believe need more polish.
Here’s Karl Magnus Troedsson, GM of Battlefield developer DICE, explaining the delay:
Today we are announcing that Battlefield Hardline will launch in early 2015. Obviously, this is big news, so I’d like to address why we’re making this change.
Back at E3, we launched a beta for Hardline — we wanted to not only show you the game, but to let you play it for yourselves. Millions of you jumped in and had a great time. As a result, the Visceral Games team learned a lot from players about what they wanted in the game. We’ve been pouring over the data and feedback, and have already been putting a lot of it right into the game and sharing it directly with you.
This feedback also spurred us to start thinking about other possibilities and ways we could push Hardline innovation further and make the game even better. The more we thought about these ideas, the more we knew we had to get them into the game you will all be playing. However, there was only one problem. We would need more time. Time that we didn’t have if we decided to move forward with launching in just a couple of months.
We decided that the right thing to do was to take more time to ensure Hardline is the best, most innovative Battlefield experience we can give to you, our fans.
Here are a few of the things the new timing will allow us to accomplish:
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.
We are doing all of this for one reason. Because we want Battlefield Hardline to be the best game it can be, and so that we can create the best environment for a smooth launch for our players. We will give you updates on our progress and we’ll regularly share updates along the way via Battlefield.com/Hardline as well as the Battlefield social channels.
In addition to the ongoing development of Hardline, it’s important to note that the DICE teams continue to drive Battlefield 4. We continue to explore new opportunities for improvements and we are still releasing new content, including “Dragon’s Teeth,” the fourth expansion pack that launches worldwide on July 29, and “Final Stand” coming later this year. We remain committed to giving you the best BF4 experience possible.
Comments
27 responses to “Battlefield: Hardline Delayed To 2015”
Loved BF2, liked BF3, dealt with BF4… I’m pretty sure I’m going to find the missing pools from Sims in BF Hardline cuz FUCK YOU EA
Have you played BF4 again recently, it plays allot better, I gave up on it for about 6 months but already bought premium at launch so got back into it.
Yeah I was playing it last night and it feels and runs so much better than when it was released.
I find it wildly unpredictable. One day it’ll all be running damn near perfectly and it is superb. Go back the next day and it’s unplayable due to rubber banding.
yep still get stuck on door jambs and the odd grenade bounces back off invisible walls, have you changed your network frequency update to high and altered the game smoothing at all?
Did the frequency… can’t recall if we have the smoothing setting on PS4 or not. But the fact it’s fine sometimes and not others makes me wonder if the issue is on the server end rather than my end.
Yea true, I left the smoothing at 50%, think the higher you have it the less visual bugs but increased latency, also increased sensitivity down scope to 150%.
It does run much better than say 4 months ago, however a LOT of the bugs they fixed in the pre Dragons teeth DLC are now back as part of Dragons teeth.
The Shot around corners, death trading and dead body invis shield are all back with a vengeance.
These were almost none existent just 4 weeks ago.
I tried to play again after downloading all the new maps and Origin keeps telling me I need the premium edition even though I’ve had it since day one.
Haha true, gutted, its still not 100% fixed, all my loads still reset daily but the core gameplay seems aight.
LIES! ALL LIES! Not falling for this again.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Bad Company 2 was the last BF is really got into, BF3 was ok but totally skipped 4 I will jump hardline aswell doesnt look interesting
I would prefer another Vietnam or WW2 BF, the modern ones are old now :-S
you want an older themed new game because the modern themed settings are getting old. ha! fun way of putting it :>
I also took a long break from BF4 because of how broken it was, but I’ve been playing it again and I’ve got to say it’s a huge improvement over where it was Months ago. Still some rubber banding from time to time (have my smoothing on about 30% & network frequency on high) but nothing that ruins the game. I’m actually really enjoying it now & the Naval strike maps are great! (kind of Vietnam style of maps (sorta)).
As for the BFH Beta, comparatively it ran much better than the BF3 or BF4 beta which were both very average, there were nowhere near as may glitches that I noticed and the netcode and hit registration felt pretty solid. I am also happy that they did it so far out from the game, proves that they are actually using feedback to improve the launch product. My biggest criticism of the BF3 & 4 beta’s was that they launches so close to the actual game launch that the devs couldn’t have possibly used any of the feedback to improve the launch title..
I think there is real hope for BF Hardline…
FTFY – “We don’t want to launch right in the middle of the well-chummed shark tank that is the month of October.”
Seriously, there are about 20 games coming out that month they’d be competing against. Crazy.
Edit: a word
I really commend Visceral games for delaying Battlefield Hardline until 2015. I think EA is realizing that the community is sick to death with games that are unfinished or incomplete. I would rather wait 6-12 months for a game and have a great experience than a game full of bugs.
this actually makes me want to play Hardline now; I’d written it off purely from the shitstorm that was BF4, but I’m glad to see they’re not going to rush it. Mind you, I’m still falling back on the “wake me when you make Bad Company 3” pile
Good. It felt too much like an “Expansion”. Whch isn’t bad; it would’ve been an amazing expansion to BF4, kinda like what “Road to Rome” did for BF1942. Personally I think its a shame it has to be its own game.
But if they really want it to be its own, it needs a ton of changes: HUD needs a complete overhaul, some mechanics need to be removed outright (why do cops have parachutes?!), gameplay has to feel relevant to the setting (cops aren’t acting like cops) otherwise its just a re-skin of BF4.
Not really interested in this. Have been playing BF4 pretty regularly on Xbox one since release and it’s been heaps of fun.
I don’t need a “Cops and Robbers” game. A few mates and I have been playing Payday 1 & 2 on pc most weeks and they’re the style I think more fits that genre.
Ok so the translation for this is.
DICE still hasn’t found a way to fix battlefield 4’s netcode and don’t expect to before Hardline was expected to be released.
A lot of people including myself feel BF4 slightly improved but the netcode has now returned to a terrible state. Prompting many to think they rolled back the netcode fixes. There also is a suggestion that the fix is a lie and most servers don’t actually support the increased tickrate and / or if they do they don’t have the extra resources for it leading to other netcode issues.
The other big thing is, clearly they realised the game truly is just a mod and not worth the full price. This was the number one narrative and feedback. So they are going back to try and give it more of a unique identity and to add more content.
These have to be the only two reasons.
I know it’s sucky but 2015 is going to be fucking amazing:
Battlefield: Hardline (PS4)
The Order: 1886 (PS4)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PS4)
ABZU (PS4, digital)
Below (PS4, digital)
Batman: Arkham Knight (PS4)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS4)
Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U)
Inside (PS4, digital)
SOMA (PS4, digital)
Bloodborne (PS4)
No Man’s Sky (PS4, digital)
Rainbow Six: Siege (PS4)
Everybodys Gone To The Rapture (PS4, digital)
Rise of The Tomb Raider (PS4)
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (PS4)
Star Wars: Battlefront (PS4)
The Legend of Zelda (Wii U)
Doom (PS4)
The Last Guardian (PS4)
Cyberpunk 2077 (PS4)
(All are in vague order that I expect these to come out; and yes, I am bias towards the PS4/Wii U so sue me.)
You be trolling…
Everyone knows The Last Guardian will only come out the same day as Half Life 3.
Seriously – I don’t understand why people are still pumped for The Order – while it is set in an interesting place and setting, it still looks more and more like a very generic shooter.
Also willing to take bets that MGSV, Uncharted 4, SW Battlefront, Doom, Cyberpunk and Rainbow Six: Seige (although i didn’t think this was announced for 2015 was it?) will all slip into 2016.
You are right, although I suspect MGS V will be March next year. MGS always releases in March and from what I saw at E3 is close to complete.
As for Doom, a friend of mine was just contracted to do sound mastering related work for it. It is coming next year, trust me.
Has anything been seen of Cyberpunk beyond the original trailer? Who even knows if there’s a game there?
Also isn’t Below an Xbone title??
As for Hardline, I’m looking forward to this and I’m completely baffled how DICE (of all organisations) managed to screw up the MP of BF4!?
From memory Bad Company 2 launched in Feb so I take the Q1 launch as a good omen