Battlefield 4 delays were almost needed for the game’s arrival on the next-gen Xbox One and PS4 consoles, developer DICE has revealed.
With the two eagerly awaited consoles set to hit retailers next month, DICE has revealed that it considered delaying the hotly anticipated first-person shooter for next-gen gamers due to the difficulties involved in developing a game alongside the new platform.
“We've been very aggressive with Battlefield 4 in that we want to be out at launch with the next gen consoles," Patrick Bach, Executive Producer on Battlefield 4 said in a recent interview with GamesIndustry. He added: "I think people might not grasp how hard that is, to develop a game at the same time as the hardware.”
With Ubisfot’s high-profile next-gen release Watchdog having this week having been pushed back until 2014, Bach has claimed that DICE considered doing the same with Battlefield 4 in order to give itself more time to perfect the title.
“We've been struggling quite a lot to keep up with the changes we've seen - both sides need to adapt and you end up being late. Everything is very complicated. Battlefield itself is a really complicated game, so it doesn't make our lives any easier,” he stated.
"So we knew we'd set ourselves a tough challenge, but people on the outside seem to think that because there are going to be launch titles, it's easy. What are we spending all our time doing? They don't understand how hard it is! Talking about Watch_Dogs, I don't blame them, there are times when we've considered doing the same thing - luckily we've overcome those hurdles and thought about what the game actually is on the next gen
“We've had an excellent team working that out at the same time as the game itself, which is a big struggle. We can see that a lot of the next gen games coming are, arguably, lesser when it comes to the scope of features because of this problem."
Earlier today another next-gen launch game was confirmed to be facing lengthy delays, with the PS4 exclusive Driveclub now set to launch in early 2014 as opposed to alongside the console on the November 29 PS4 release date.
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