Today just isn’t a good day for Q4 gaming releases. After having just heard about the delay of Dragon Age: Inquisition, it has also come to light that Battlefield: Hardline, another one of the hardcore gaming season’s heavy hitters, has been pushed back.
Unlike the small one month setback of Dragon Age: Inquisition though, Battlefield: Hardline has been hit with a pretty significant delay that will stretch the game’s launch into early 2015. When discussing the delay, VP and GM of DICE, Karl Magnus Troedsson, summed everything up with the usual “We need more time to make the best game we can” line.
He also goes on to mention that the delay of the game will benefit both the single player campaign and the multiplayer aspect. Apparently, the single player campaign will have some unique features and presentation that draw inspiration from TV crime dramas. I suppose since the theme of the game this time around is a glorified tale of cops and robbers, that idea sounds exciting and could naturally fit into the campaign.
Regarding the multiplayer, feedback from the beta is responsible for the delay.
“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.”
Perhaps what is most interesting about this whole delay is that EA now no longer has a military shooter to release in the fourth quarter of 2014. Typically, they like to release either a Battlefield game or an entry in their Medal Of Honor franchise to slowly pick away at stealing the audience of the Call Of Duty series. This year, however, they’ll have nothing.
Whether this is all good, bad, or somewhere in between for business and gamers alike remains to be seen, but we will continue covering and updating you on Battlefield: Hardline. If I had to wager a guess, the release would be sometime around February, as history shows that is when developer Visceral Games usually release their blockbuster titles (Dead Space 2, Dead Space 3, Dante’s Inferno). So for now, expect an early 2015 release.