EA has addressed their concerns with Battlefield 4 firsthand. They discuss why they feel the launch was ‘unacceptable’, and share some insight on how it looked from EA’s and especially DICE’s end.
EA’s Andrew Wilson makes one important distinction that was clouded in the launch and the ensuing fallout: the problems with the game’s online did not come from the servers, but the client itself. Battlefield 4 is now at a state where it’s fully playable without any issues.
Wilson boils down the problems with the game down to ambition. They went for 1080p, giant maps, 64 players on online, and Levolution. With all the things they were trying, they simply were not able to get everything completely right.
Wilson also denies outright the accusations that the game was rushed for Playstation 4 and Xbox One’s first holiday. He explains that DICE had a lot of time to work on it, but simply ran across the issues connected with making a game for a console’s launch. Many of the things they needed to test came up at the final hour, because the specs weren’t ready.
Wilson then reveals something else we weren’t privy to before; yes, the people at DICE took the issue seriously. In fact, they took it personally. DICE also copped to being surprised at how poorly the game came out, but they had some serious reflection on the experience. DICE seems guarded about talking about it further, but they attest they definitely learned some lessons from all this.