Keeping Promises: Seven Things That Need To Happen In 2015

It's tough to make a promise when it comes to video game development. So many things can happen when it comes to a title or feature being completed, to say nothing of nailing a release date. That being said, there have been some...assurances, shall we say...that companies have made about their games and products for 2015 that we think should be honored.

Battlefield Hardline Works At Launch

Battlefield 4 – not to mention other EA titles like Sims 4 – had launches marred by problems, so it's incumbent upon Hardline (above) developer Visceral Games to come out of the gate clean for this offshoot of the otherwise lauded FPS franchise.

At TGS, Hardline creative director Ian Milham told Game Revolution, "Yes, it's gonna work," when asked about the title being stable at launch. Obviously any game will have a few bugs and whatnot at launch, but it's not too much to ask that Hardline be stable and work as intended.

The game's performance is important not only for gamers' sake, but it could prove the validity or otherwise of future Battlefield offshoots as well as internal EA studios apart from DICE handling them. Given that Visceral's Dead Space franchise is on hiatus, hitting it out of the park with Hardline would be quite the feather in the outfit's cap.

Halo 5: Guardians Release Date This Fall

The 343 Industries webpage for the game lists a fall release, and we certainly hope that holds. Perhaps in already assigning the game a release timeframe Microsoft and 343 are well aware of the job before them and are up to task (taking into account 343's well-received and on-time release of Halo 4 in 2012), but given the mistakes made with The Master Chief Collection, nothing is a given.

Ensuring that Halo 5: Guardians does indeed release this fall (or even slightly later in the holiday timeframe) could be important for Microsoft and Xbox One to sustain the momentum the console received this past holiday season. Depending on how well the system is doing at the time and how good the game itself is, its release could even propel the console past the PlayStation 4.

DriveClub PlayStation Plus Edition

Sony and DriveClub developer Evolution Studios announced a PlayStation Plus edition of the game which would give members of Sony's premium tier access to a free version of the game that contained all of its features except for the paid-version's full complement of cars and tracks. However, the PS+ edition was indefinitely put on hold after the game's bad launch.

Perhaps all those gamers who truly wanted to play the game have bought it by now or there is too much skepticism given the bad launch that the PS+ edition is forever tainted, but it's important that it see the light of day at some point if for no other fact that it's a cool take on the demo concept that we'd like other games to try with PlayStation Plus. As David Brent once said, "A good idea is a good idea forever."

Grand Theft Auto Online Heists Coming In "The Coming Weeks"

GTA Online players have been waiting a while for developer Rockstar Games to make good on its promise to offer online heists. They were tabbed for spring until Rockstar officially delayed the feature last summer.

Recently, the company said that online heists were merely weeks away. While we're inclined (or perhaps desperate enough) to believe such a specific assertion, the fact that development is still continuing on the PC version means we should be skeptical about believing any claims regarding online heists until we've actually got our sweaty hands on the dough.

Steam Machines Will Be "Front And Center" At GDC This March

We recently reported a quote from a Valve representative that the third-party hardware related to Valve's Steam Machines initiative would be at GDC in early March – a good sign that things are progressing since the delay last spring.

It's still unclear how much of a market there is for the machines – the functionality of which can be currently experienced without much fuss with a normal PC and an HDMI cord, and whose price shouldn't be much cheaper than a home console – but with the new home systems catching on more and more, it's vital that the Steam Machines show up and be counted at GDC.

The PS4 & Xbox One's Evolving Feature Sets

Both Sony and Microsoft told gamers that some of the features the companies enumerated for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One before their launches would not be available until some time after they came out, but it's been a year already and the PS4 in particular doesn't have its suspend/resume mode nor HBO Go!

Sales of both home consoles were good this holiday season, so it's imperative that both manufacturers come through on their stated visions for the systems and maintain their momentum, before there is (even more) disappointment that they aren't all they should be.

The Legend of Zelda & Star Fox For The Wii U Are Both Coming This Year

At The Game Awards in early December, Nintendo not only reconfirmed that the as-yet-named Legend of Zelda game for the Wii U is coming out in 2015, but that Star Fox would precede it. Since then, Shigeru Miyamoto himself has also said that Star Fox will be playable at E3 this year.

Two major Nintendo-developed titles for the Wii U come at a pivotal time for the system given the steam that competitors Microsoft and Sony have picked up with the Xbox One and PS4, respectively. It would be a shame if, for instance, the Zelda game is somehow bumped out into 2016. Different development groups within Nintendo are handling both titles, so the release of one game shouldn't interfere with the other (at least on paper). But with Nintendo locked into such a concrete release structure, we can't but help be nervous that if one domino falls, the others naturally follow.