Battlefield Hardline’s creative director Ian Milham tells IGN that it took EA some convincing by Visceral to delay the game in order to facilitate the player feedback received during the game's Beta.

“We had that Beta in June and it went really, really well. But we had this ton of feedback and we had a lot of conversations about, ‘Man, this is really cool we should do this. Oh, but we don’t have the time,’” he said. “And then as we really started to think about how long games are living now over our time, we thought we only get one chance to do this right and we got something that is on the doorstep of being great.”In July, EA and Visceral announced that Battlefield Hardline was pushed from October 2014 to early 2015 to take on feedback received during the game's Beta. Then EA CEO Andrew Wilson explained earlier this month that titles like Battlefield Hardline and Dragon Age: Inquisition were delayed because the entire company wants to push innovation and polish to the forefront of every game EA ships.Milham explained that as there was a lot at stake, Visceral had approached EA for more time on the game after the Beta which was met with some friction due to a lot of other factors involved with the publisher.“I mean we just want to make cool games and thats all we care about or want to do. And there is a whole universe of other stuff going on: What other things does EA have coming out? What other games are coming out?” he said. “Like this had nothing to do with release windows or competition or any of that kind of stuff. But those are things in the world. So of course there was a lot of ‘Grr, well I don’t know we got to figure this out, this is a pretty big deal are you sure?’ But as we talked it out, it became pretty clear that it was the right thing to do, so they were onboard.”One of Visceral’s concerns rolling out the Beta was fans not thinking that it was Battlefield title and saying ‘Huh, this wasn’t what I thought,’" he said. “And maybe the more cynical amongst them might think that they already had some bank robbery game and EA wanted it to sell more so they put Battlefield on the box,” Milham said. “Which isn’t the case at all. This was kicked off as ‘Hey, we wanted to make a Battlefield game’ before we chose theme of the world and that is what it has been since the beginning.“What was interesting was the response at E3 was actually in some ways the opposite, that people went ‘Oh, thats Battlefield but I wanted it to be more different I want it to more cops and robbers-sy and more specific and and more different features and more different maps and more different modes.’ And that was again part of what we trying to do here."“Not only did we did get permission to make it different, we got demand to make it different,” Milham said. “Some of it wasn’t necessarily that all of the feedback was ‘Oh, we want it more different’ and we were like ‘Well, OK, that is going to take a while,’ But it was part of the compilation of stuff, for sure.”Milham sees the game’s lifespan stretching for years and Hardline existing alongside other Battlefield titles. “I think we are making something different from the core of Battlefield that is being made and I think they can live along next to each other. And whatever gets made next and whenever the next Battlefield comes along, I don’t think it necessarily replaces this one.While Visceral has a “bunch of ideas” to keep the game fresh and extend its lifespan, reacting to community gameplay and feedback is its number one priority to draw from for the future of the game, Milham said. “But we are really trying to keep an open mind and an open dialog with people and be reactive about that. It’s going to come out, and people will have passionate opinions and will play it new a way, and you can never really predict what people are going to do.”The police and criminals installment to the Battlefield franchise is slated to release on PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 3 in 2015.

Jenna Pitcher is a freelance journalist writing for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter