In the wake of Battlefield 4’s notoriously turbulent launch, EA and DICE are said to be considering drafting in players for early access schemes to ensure future iterations in the first-person shooter series avoid similar problems.
Speaking with Game Informer, general manager of DICE, Karl Magnus Troedsson, revealed that user-oriented alpha testing is very much on the table.
“We have nothing to announce, but we are having discussions when it comes to [early access]. It comes not from a business perspective, but more from a perspective of if it would help us have a stable launch of the game.”
While this potential feature is still incubating in development at both EA and DICE, the prospect of early access for a multiplayer-focused behemoth such as Battlefield could potentially iron out a lot of the issues that Battlefield 4 encountered upon launch. By stressing the company’s servers with a group of players who opt-in from the testing, the studio could work to assure the quality of the product before it even hits the market, rather than the weeks after.
Ultimately, this discussion is a consequence of the company’s move in December of 2013, after the developing team put future DLC for Battlefield 4 on hold in order to address a series of technical issues that plagued the single-player and multiplayer components of the title.
In the interview, Troedsson made no mention of pricing point for the early access scheme nor a specific release date — given that the talks are still in an alpha stage, if you will. Still, the fact that this topic is on the table at all is a good sign for the loyal Battlefield community at large.
Looking to the future of the series, though, Visceral Games are set to release the recently unveiled Battlefield: Hardline across Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PC on October 21st and 23rd in North America and Europe, respectively.
