Battlefield series won't be annualized, insists EA

Patrick Solderlund, the Executive Vice President of EA Studios, has said that gamers shouldn’t expect the publishing giant to annualize the Battlefield franchise in light of this year’s cops vs robbers shooter, Battlefield Hardline.

"It doesn't necessarily mean that we need to annualize Battlefield and that's the way it's going to be forever and ever," Soderlund told Polygon. "I understand that some people may look at it that way but that's what happened."

"The EA that I'm trying to help build isn't an EA that needs to annualize everything."

Elsewhere, he also promised that Hardline will incorporate many of the fixes introduced with Battlefield 4, which was plagued by numerous bugs at its launch last fall.

"Everything that we've fixed with [Battlefield 4] will go into Hardline," said Soderlund "Once people get their hands on the netcode patch, which I think is profound, that will take care of a lot of the complaints around Battlefield... and how responsive the game is."

Battlefield Hardline was announced at EA's E3 press briefing last Monday, and is due out on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC later this year. Check out our impressions from the PS4 beta here.