While I’m enjoying Battlefield 4 a lot, I’ll be the first to admit that the game is broken. While DICE has brought out 13 server-side updates and two-client side patches (with more to come) since the October 29 release date, their next-gen shooter is in a sorry state of disrepair.
Even though China Rising just launched this past Tuesday, work on Battlefield 4’s remaining expansions (and other DICE projects, presumably the Mirror’s Edge prequel and Battlefront) have been halted until the majority of the issues with the game have been sorted out. While the previous client-side patch solved the Commander EMP blur effect and the sound bugs on maps like Golmud Railway, there continues to be a large array of problems on every system.
China Rising was apparently too far along to postpone (no word on Second Assault which is an Xbox One timed-exclusive) which is why it stuck to its original release date. DICE recently held a double-EXP event and gave players a 3.4x scope for the 1911 pistol which was formerly a developer-exclusive attachment as a way to make up for the issues that have been plaguing the game.
To editorialize a bit here, I’m a massive Battlefield fan, but the sorry state of Battlefield 4 (and the fact that EA put it on sale for $30 on Black Friday/Cyber Monday) has made me really wary of pre-ordering Battlefield games in the future. I have a huge amount of respect for DICE, but every Battlefield game has been messed up on launch to varying degrees. While DICE has demonstrated that they are working hard on these issues, and postponing work on future projects and DLC is a good move, the fact that we’re over a month after launch and the game is potentially just as, or more, messed up now as it was on day one is a pretty big black mark on their record.
Has anyone else been playing Battlefield 4? What do you think of this move by DICE/EA?
Source – Polygon
During my limited time I’ve played a few matches on Xbox One, and ran into numerous audio glitches and crashes. And as an EA shareholder, this news hurts my wallet as well. Needless to say I am disappoint.
I learned my lesson with Battlefield 3 with all of the god awful Origin stuff. I know you encouraged me to go back and give it a try recently, but I figured with 4 coming out I might as well wait and see if they come out strong. This time I’m glad I trusted my gut. Maybe it will be playable in 2 years.
I would like to see an analysis to see which is actually more cost effective: releasing a buggy game early/on time, or pushing back the release until it is more playable. I wonder how much thought they put into the trade off between ‘hey we need income from selling this game now and on time’ and ‘hey releasing this game before its ready may reduce our overall income in the long run’.
@hideinbush Considering that EA does not offer refunds for digital purchases I’m sure they don’t take that into consideration. :/
I’ve been putting some hours into it on PS3 and while I feel it’s improved on BF3’s mechanics and fixed issues I had with 3, there are some bugs that get a bit annoying at times. There’ve been a couple clientside patchs recently, with this latest just coming out today I assume (3:18 CST 12/6/13) and I noticed the patch fixed the rubberbanding but there’s still an audio glitch present, but I think the texture render bug has been sorted out. There’s also a UI glitch in the menu that persists and still no party system exists on the PS3 version. I might take some time to play A Link Between Worlds more and get my new graphics card installed and delve into my PC games backlog. Definitely glad I didn’t choose to preorder this though