Battlefield Hardline Won't Repeat BF4 Launch Disaster, Dev Assures

Battlefield 4 had major issues at launch in 2013, but you shouldn't expect the next installment in the series--2015's Battlefield Hardline--to run into the same problems. In a new interview, Hardline creative director Ian Milham of Visceral Games laid out the reasons why the game "will work" at launch come early next year.

"What you're basically asking is, 'Is your game going to work?' and the answer is yes, it's gonna work," Milham told GameRevolution. "We actually started on this more than a year before Battlefield 4 came out. We've been working with the DICE guys for a long time; some of our engineering work is actually in Battlefield 4 and things they've been doing since then."

"It's in pretty great shape now and all that work is gonna come into what we're doing," he added. "We already had one very successful beta, we're going to have another beta on every platform we ship on. We take shipping a working game pretty seriously. So, yes, the game will work."

Hardline's first beta was held in June for PlayStation 4 and PC. The game's all-platforms beta (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC) will take place sometime before the end of 2014.

Also in the interview, Milham acknowledged that Hardline--like any other online-focused game--could run into some level of issues at launch. However, he said he's optimistic that the game won't face Battlefield 4-level problems at launch. The game's launch issues not only locked some players out of the game entirely, but they even led to the commencement of a class-action lawsuit against publisher Electronic Arts.

Hardline was originally targeted to launch on October 21, but EA delayed the game in July to a new release date of "early 2015." Part of the reason why the publisher pushed the game back a few months was because fans were calling for more innovation.

When Hardline is finally released, it stands to have a long lifespan, according to Milham. He said in a previous interview that because the game is so different to the "core" of what Battlefield is (it's a cops-and-robbers game), gamers might continue to play it even when the potential Battlefield 5 is released.

For more on Hardline, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch