In a generation full of broken launches, EA and DICE’s Battlefield 4, which launched in 2013, was the first major high profile broken launch, with the game being plagued by countless bugs, glitches, and online stability issues. The entire debacle has been well documented, and while the game works as intended now, and is actually pretty good for it, the specter of a broken launch also looms over the upcoming Battlefield Hardline, which is due to be the next major launch in the series.
But Visceral Games, who are at the helm of this installment, say that they are aware of all the issues that plagued Battlefield 4, and determined not to repeat any of them.
“Here’s the deal [and] it seems silly to even have to say it… but if you buy a game it should work,” says Battlefield Hardline’s creative director Ian Millham in an interview with X-ONE.
“People are trusting us with their money and time, and we should earn and deliver on that trust. Games these days are spectacularly complicated. We’re talking about five different platforms, a simultaneous launch, seven game modes, a billion vehicles, weapons, gadgets and possibilities – so it would be naïve not to expect turbulence.”
“But, we are doing everything in our power, and I mean /everything in our power/, to have a stable and smooth launch experience for everybody,” continues Millham. That includes now multiple betas, hours of testing every day, a lot of certification, a lot of attention, and many, many, many people’s jobs are nothing but performance and stability.
“You can not take it more seriously than we are taking it. We are making every effort because people have a right to a game that works.”
Let’s hope, then, that we have a major AAA third party game launching that is actually not broken for a change.