If anything was wrong with the Battlefield Hardline servers Tuesday, it looks like publisher Electronic Arts and developers Visceral Games and DICE may have absolutely nothing to do with it.
This would be a welcome change in the history of Battlefield releases, whose online modes are notorious for being unstable to the point of being unplayable during launch week. The only hiccup so far is a DDoS attack that was reported by Electronic Arts during Tuesday’s North American game launch that was quickly resolved.
Hardline was pushed back from a fall 2014 release date shortly after the conclusion of a closed beta test in June. Beta tests on game consoles often feel more like server stress tests than actual tests of the game design and rules, so perhaps the closed beta testing for Hardline gave Visceral Games and DICE some useful feedback on improving Hardline’s netcode.
In any case, at the moment you won’t find complaints online from gamers about server stability. From the Battlefield Hardline subreddit:
Not the highest praise in the world, but in light of the buggy launches of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, and Battlefield 4, it’s still a huge win for Electronic Arts.
Note: The Daily Dot begins its reviews of multiplayer-heavy games on release day. Our review of Battlefield Hardline is currently in progress.
H/T Eurogamer/ Illustration courtesy of Electronic Arts | Remix by Max Fleishman