By now, chances are you’ve heard of Battlefield 4’s launch issues that plagued the game months after it was made available at retail. It’s gotten so bad that EA and DICE had to dole out patches, and even implement a separate feature for the game’s complaints.
Speaking to Eurogamer, EA CEO Andrew Wilson explained BF4’s launch problem and said, “For clarity it wasn’t actually a server problem for Battlefield 4, It was a client side problem. Right now the game is playing extremely well, and people are in there and having a lot of fun. I’m still playing it.” He also addressed that since the game was pushing for a lot of features, that there were things that got missed during development.
Think about what Battlefield 4 was: 64 player multiplayer, giant maps, 1080p, Levolution that was changing the gameplay design in an emergent way. There is a chance there are things you are going to miss through the development cycle. And you end up in a situation we had with Battlefield 4.
However, Wilson does admit that the situation with BF4 was “unacceptable” and adds that they changed development process to ensure developers have more time to test their games.
For me, the situation we had was unacceptable. For the team it was unacceptable. We have worked tirelessly since then to make sure the gameplay experience got to where it absolutely should have been at launch and we’re focused on that and we continue to deliver value to that player base.
We have changed development processes, we’ve changed development timelines and we’ve changed testing processes and beta processes, all with a view to not have the issues again.
It’s good that EA’s head cheese has acknowledged the issues since it could severely damage the franchise itself it ever happens again. We asked this same question to Visceral Games Lead Multiplayer Designer Thad Sasser during our Battlefield: Hardline E3 video interview.
For those getting Battlefield: Hardline later this year, are you optimistic that the shooter won’t suffer the same fate as its predecessor?
