Battlefield Hardline has been a bit of a hard sell for EA and Visceral, with its last beta recieving a less-than-warm reception. But Visceral have been working hard to make Hardline a great new entry in the Battlefield series. They've been doing this with the help of an army of fans, community , and YouTubers, who have been informing them where they're going wrong.
Talking to GameSpot, senior producer Scott Probst explained that a program called "Game Changers" was set up, that invited YouTubers, community , and fans of other shooters to the Visceral Games studio to help in day-long playtest sessions during Hardline's development.
"They've been key to our success," said Probst. "They gave us very, very clear on what they really like, what they really didn't like, what they'd like to see changed. And they've been working with the team even outside of their individual visits to the studio. They've gotten on email and fired away tons of thoughts."
This team has been providing on elements not including in public beta tests, such as so far unseen maps and game modes. "We've tuned a lot of specific game modes according to their to make sure these things are going to serve the Battlefield community the way we want them to." said Probst.
This approach, combined with the months-long delay, will hopefully mean that Battlefield Hardline feels much better to play than it did back in the post-E3 beta in 2014.