Does ‘Battlefield Hardline’ Resolution Bode Ill For ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’?


The hype for Star Wars: Battlefront is building after a behind closed doors showing at the Game Developers Conference. However, Battlefield: Hardline is coming soon and uses the same engine. Will news that the latter is running at sub-1080p resolutions on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One damper some of the enthusiasm of the former?

The Battlefield Hardline beta was believed to be running at 900p on the PlayStation 4 and 720p on the Xbox One. Outlets such as VideoGamer and Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry suspected that the game was running at the same resolution as Battlefield 4. Developer Visceral Games officially confirmed that in a tweet on Sunday, just over a week from the game’s launch.

Battlefield Hardline does run at 60 frames per second (fps) on both platforms, which is considered to be the benchmark for first-person shooters. However, it’s disappointing that the resolution for has not been improved in the year and a half since the launch of Battlefield 4. Does Star Wars: Battlefront have the same sub-1080p future ahead of it since it also uses DICE’s Frostbite 3 engine?

In a way, it’s understandable that Battlefield Hardline is still at 900p/720p. Battlefield 4 launched with so many problems that DICE, DICE Los Angeles, and Visceral Games have spent the past year trying to fix the Frostbite 3 engine problems with Battlefield 4 and make sure the changes are transferred over to Hardline. In that regard, they’ve mostly succeeded. Battlefield 4 has improved dramatically from its broken launch and the Hardline beta demonstrated a game that ran well, even if it hasn’t yet shown itself to be a visual showcase.

But what about Star Wars: Battlefront? Nothing has been shown publicly of that game so far beyond a teaser trailer, development video, and some concept art. Gameplay footage was shown behind closed doors at GDC last week and received a “superb ovation” according to Electronic Arts COO Peter Moore.

Of course, any game can have a good showing during a presentation and loose conversation around its game mechanics. It was Sony’s Adam Boyes that confidently proclaimed that Battlefield Hardline would run at 1080p and 60 fps just last year at E3. Similarly, The Order: 1886 looked extremely promising, but came out recently only to be bashed by gamers and critics alike.

Will it be a disaster for Star Wars: Battlefront if it runs at sub-1080 on the PS4 and Xbox One when it launches in late 2015? Only if the gameplay mechanics and multiplayer are big letdowns as well. It would still be nice to see DICE make some progress on optimizing the Frostbite 3 engine for current-gen consoles, however.

[Images via Star Wars: Battlefront]

Share this article: Does ‘Battlefield Hardline’ Resolution Bode Ill For ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’?
More from Inquisitr