‘Star Wars: Battlefront,’ ‘Battlefield: Hardline’ Dated For PS4, Xbox One, And PC
Electronic Arts held a quarterly financial earnings call Tuesday and revealed release dates for the previously delayed Battlefield: Hardline plus the highly anticipated Star Wars: Battlefront reboot. That also sets the stage for the future of the mainline Battlefield games.
Battlefield: Hardline, the cops versus robbers first-person shooter from Visceral Games, will be released on March 17, 2015 in North America and March 19, 2015 in Europe per an EA press release and officially announced on the Battlefield Blog. It’s slated for not only the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, but the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as well.
Battlefield Hardline release date announced. http://t.co/HgXky2ne6J pic.twitter.com/d5IGION5fz
— Battlefield (@Battlefield) October 28, 2014
Meanwhile, Star Wars: Battlefront will cap off 2015 with a holiday release, EA CEO Andrew Wilson confirmed. Electronic Arts has favored an October release in the past to get ahead of Activision’s Call of Duty series. It will be at least a November 2015 release, barring a delay of some sort.
Two major shooter releases in a year obviously impacts Electronic Arts financial future. It also affects when the next main Battlefield game will be released.
Battlefield 5 is now aiming for a Holiday 2016 launch. “This allows us to have a major first-person shooter title each year,” according to one EA executive on the earnings call.
That’s actually been one of the goals of for Electronic Arts so it can compete with Call of Duty. However, Medal of Honor and its sequel flopped. Meanwhile, Battlefield 3 was well received, but Battlefield 4 had such a disastrous launch, with bugs and server issues that are still being fixed, that it potentially damaged the Battlefield brand.
Battlefield: Hardline was originally supposed to release this October but a decision was made to delay it following feedback from players during a July beta.
“The feedback [from the beta] spurred us to start thinking about other possibilities and ways we could push Hardline innovation further and make the game even better,” EA explained not long after the beta ended. “The more we thought about these ideas, the more we knew we had to get them into the game you will all be playing. However, there was only one problem. We would need more time. Time that we didn’t have if we decided to move forward with launching in just a couple of months.”
As for Star Wars: Battlefront, EA first announced that DICE was working on rebooting that series following a deal with Disney to develop Star Wars games for the consoles. Nothing has been shown of the game outside of CGI teaser trailer. However, a release just one year away likely means a bigger reveal during GameTrailers’ VGX award show in December, followed by heavy marketing through 2015.
What do you think of the release dates for Battlefield: Hardline, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Battlefield 5? Will the Battlefield series be able to get its groove back? Sound off in the comments below.
[Images via Electronic Arts]
