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DICE: Involving Players In Early Access Schemes Could Ensure Stable Battlefield Launches

In the wake of Battlefield 4’s notoriously turbulent launch, EA and DICE are said to be considering drafting in players for early access schemes to ensure future iterations in the first-person shooter series avoid similar problems.

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In the wake of Battlefield 4’s notoriously turbulent launch, EA and DICE are said to be considering drafting in players for early access schemes to ensure future iterations in the first-person shooter series avoid similar problems.

Speaking with Game Informer, general manager of DICE, Karl Magnus Troedsson, revealed that user-oriented alpha testing is very much on the table.

“We have nothing to announce, but we are having discussions when it comes to [early access]. It comes not from a business perspective, but more from a perspective of if it would help us have a stable launch of the game.”

While this potential feature is still incubating in development at both EA and DICE, the prospect of early access for a multiplayer-focused behemoth such as Battlefield could potentially iron out a lot of the issues that Battlefield 4 encountered upon launch. By stressing the company’s servers with a group of players who opt-in from the testing, the studio could work to assure the quality of the product before it even hits the market, rather than the weeks after.

Ultimately, this discussion is a consequence of the company’s move in December of 2013, after the developing team put future DLC for Battlefield 4 on hold in order to address a series of technical issues that plagued the single-player and multiplayer components of the title.

In the interview, Troedsson made no mention of pricing point for the early access scheme nor a specific release date — given that the talks are still in an alpha stage, if you will. Still, the fact that this topic is on the table at all is a good sign for the loyal Battlefield community at large.

Looking to the future of the series, though, Visceral Games are set to release the recently unveiled Battlefield: Hardline across Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PC on October 21st and 23rd in North America and Europe, respectively.