EA’s Andrew Wilson has spoken candidly about the crippling launch problems Battlefield 4 suffered, branding them “unacceptable.”
Wilson revealed that the elongated teething issues the FPS experienced was due to the ambition of developer DICE. Speaking to Eurogamer, Wilson said: “Think about what Battlefield 4 was: 64-player multiplayer, giant maps, 1080p, Levolutionthat 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.
“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.
“But when you do things like that you can never guarantee. It would be disingenuous for me to sit here and say, ‘we will never have an issue again,’ because that would mean we were never going to push the boundaries again. And I don’t want to be that company. I want to be a company that pushes to lead and innovate and be creative. But you can start to do things that give you a better handle and a better view about what the potential challenges might be.”
With Battlefield Hardline set to release later this year, it’s understandable that EA will be wanting Visceral Games to put the series back in the good books of fans of the series. DICE has an otherwise impeccable track record when it comes to the Battlefield games, so it will no doubt be disheartened by the huge backlash caused by Battlefield 4‘s launch issues, and will be doing its utmost to ensure that the inevitable Battlefield 5 will right the wrongs of its predecessor. It’s great when a development team has high ambitions for its software, but not when those ambitions fail to be fulfilled. We hope Wilson is right, and that DICE has learnt from its mistakes.
