Things move fast in the world of Battlefield Hardline, as DICE's new Battlefield shooter was announced less than two months ago, has already finished one round of closed beta testing, and today announces its first delay, as The Battlefield Blog has word that it is now expected in 2015, rather than later this year. Here's an outline of their reasoning:

We decided that the right thing to do was to take more time to ensure Hardline is the best, most innovative Battlefield experience we can give to you, our fans.

Here are a few of the things the new timing will allow us to accomplish:

1. Multiplayer Innovation: Coming out of our E3 beta, internal focus tests, and work with our community, we have received a lot of great Multiplayer thinking. We’re going to be adding some new feature ideas direct from the community that will evolve the cops and criminals fantasy into a truly unique Battlefield Multiplayer experience.

2. Single Player Story Depth: In order to ensure our Single Player experience delivers on player expectations, we’re spending more time polishing our core features, as well as adding a few new ones that will support a deeper “crime revenge” story experience.

3. Stability: This has been a focus for our team since day one and we’re going to be using the extra time to continue to optimize the game for a stable launch. We have learned a lot from Battlefield 4, are continuing to learn from our Community Test Environment and will learn more from another Hardline beta. More time allows us to surface issues that the team can attempt to fix prior to launch.

We are doing all of this for one reason. Because we want Battlefield Hardline to be the best game it can be, and so that we can create the best environment for a smooth launch for our players.