Our goal is to have zero pixelization effect on textures in full-HD resolution, so the relatively small location (like 4-5 minutes of gameplay) takes 2 GB of VRAM filled to the top and the only solution to this when we wanted bigger levels was streaming. Besides of idTech-based games (RAGE, Quake Wars) huge scale streaming solutions were not so popular, but now it seems they may come to glory again, cause scanning technologies should become more popular and there’s not just us who may need this solutions.

RPS: SimCity and BF4 both had terrible launches. SimCity didn't work for more than a month, and BF4 still has issues. Surely you're overhauling how you approach launches internally from now on?

Hilleman: I'm not sure I accept your premise. Battlefield 4 has been an exceedingly successful product on both consoles and PC. From a sales perspective, from a gameplay perspective.

RPS: Sure, BF4 is fundamentally a good game, but you can't just write off months of glitches and server issues. Some people straight up could not play for the first couple weeks.

Hilleman: I think there was a lot of noise about the game, but some of that is a function of your surface area. The more customers you have, the more noise becomes available. We did things wrong. We know that. We're gonna fix those things. We're gonna try to be smart about what customers want in the future.

But I'm not willing to accept - and I don-t think most of my customers are illing to say - "it's a bad product, I wish I didn't buy it." That's not the conversation we're having now. I think what we're hearing is, "You made a game we really liked. We would've liked it a little better if it didn't have these problems." Many of those problems we can fix, and we have and will.

RPS: Have you looked into ways to improve your process? Better internal testing? Better beta testing? Early Access is all the rage these days, and that generally starts in alpha. I feel like BF4 should’ve had that tag on it when it launched.

Hilleman: I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but my impression is that BF4 had more than 10,000 beta testers before it shipped. Now, some of the problems we had were related to systems that were not released. Beta testing on an unreleased system is difficult.

What I would say is, there were dynamics that were different this time. There were organizational differences. Some of those have been fixed already. Many of those conditions will not be the same next time. Some of those fixes aren’t going to solve the problem next time, though.

The obvious and glaring issues – the ones we heard most about from our customers, the ones that matter most to them – we’ve really gotten on top of those and they’re fixed. What is most important is to know how to not have the problem next time, and that’s kinda what I’m proudest about.

Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz loves Dark Souls and Demon's Souls and has finished both a number of times. He likes how "you are stronger because you as the player learn how to control your character and how to play to kill these monsters". You stop thinking about how to do something and feel the fight instead. "And this is a really great thing," he believes.

"We tried in The Witcher 2 to make this high difficulty level but it was a mistake," he admitted, "because we tried to mix two different games." The Witcher fans wanted a traditional RPG with a story, not a challenge based on their dexterity.

"Dark Souls influenced me very much because I love games like this, but I understand after The Witcher 2 that we should less experiment on stuff like this but more focus on the things which people love in our games," he said.

The learning curve in The Witcher 3 will be "proper", then - not like the much lamented learning curve in The Witcher 2. There will be difficulty levels in The Witcher 3, but unlike The Witcher 2, Normal won't feel like Hard. "It wasn't a good decision," Tomaszkiewicz added. "Right now we're changing it and I believe that everyone will go in this world very smooth and we will not get problems like it was in The Witcher 2."

Mark Rubin: In a way. I don't know if I can point to one particular cause. Early on, we didn't know where exactly the resolution of anything would fall because we didn't have hardware or the software to support it. We tried to focus in on 1080p, and if we felt like we were on borderline of performance somewhere... We tried to make the best decision for each platform that gives you the best-looking game we could get and maintains that 60 frames a second.

There's no specific, oh, well, the VO chat on Xbox took up so much resources that we couldn't do 1080p native. There's no definitive one to one per se cause and effect. It's just an overall thing. We took each system individually and said, 'okay, let's make the best game for each system.'

I think both look great. Some people might notice if they had them right next to each other. Some people might not. The Xbox One is 1080p output, it's just upscaled hardware wise.

It was a late decision, too. That call wasn't made until a month ago.

Nic: At first, we wanted to outline the progression of the player with XP, but it was reducing our motivation to steal. The main goal of a thief should be to gain loot. Garrett is already the Master Thief, so we saw no need to have XP as a core mechanic.

Daniel: We wanted to put emphasis on stealing things, and put the rewards on the stealing aspect. We want to allow the player to decide the "how to" – we shouldn't judge how the player wants to achieve their goal, only reward them for achieving it.

When I read some of the things like that petition, from my perspective we took a lot of the feedback and, while Xbox One is built to be digital native, to have this amazing online experience, we realized people wanted some choice. They wanted what I like to call a bridge, sort of how they think about the world today using more digital stuff. What we did, we added to what the console can do by providing physical and offline modes in the console. It isn’t about moving away from what that digital vision is for the platform. It’s about adding that choice. Frankly, I think we need to just do more to let people see how the console works, what they’re going to be able to do for it. I think a lot of the things they’re wishing for are frankly there.

Polygon: A lot of people are talking about DRM and used games for the next-generation. You guys have been watching what has been going on with Sony and Microsoft in the last few days. First of all, what is the EA official line right now?

Peter Moore: "We're focused at this point in time in new games and our official position is, 'I'll get back to you'. Sony have announced what they are going to do which is, y'know, business as usual, and then Microsoft are looking at allowing a publisher to opt-in, should they choose to do so. But if we opt in, do [Microsoft] charge a fee, and if so, how much? We have not internally even begun to sit down and answer those questions."

The narrative I've heard is that EA lobbied hard to have the hardware companies come up with a solution so you guys are not faffing around with online passes and you're not losing potential used game profits to retailers.

Moore: "Absolutely incorrect. As the guy who is the chief operating officer of Electronic Arts I can tell you that EA did not aggressively lobby for the platform holders to put some gating function in there to allow or disallow used games. I am on record as being a proponent of used games. I like the ecosystem. I like the fact that it's kept pricing at a good level for eight years. I like the fact that someone can buy a physical game and see some equity in that game. That keeps GameStop vibrant and they are a great launch and marketing partner for us.

"EA has never had a conversation, and I have been present at all of them, with all of the manufacturers, saying you must put a system in place that allows us to take a piece of the action or even stop it. Absolutely incorrect."

Can I take from that, that EA would be happy for the status quo to continue, as we have seen in the past generation?

Moore: "We will figure out what we need to do. I'm not trying to back-pedal but this thing just happened and we need to reconvene and hear what people think and talk to our retail partners and our first party partners. We had no idea what Sony was going to announce. We'll reconvene next week and figure it all out.

So you have never had a conversation with Jack [Tretton] where he said, 'look Peter, we're not going to do this DRM thing'. That came as much as a surprise to you as to the rest of us?

Moore: "They reserve the right, and rightly so, that they will do what they need to do. I have run two hardware launches in the Dreamcast and the Xbox 360. There's a game that goes on where you are watching what the other guy does and you move, counter-move and figure it.

"But we are completely focused on getting our games right here, watching new Battlefield 4 builds come in and getting that right and getting FIFA right and getting Madden to the next gen level and figuring out what to do with Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and we're focused on E3."

Q: You moved into console development with Witcher 2, but PC seems very much like your home platform still. In the light of Sony's announcements about how closely tied to PC architecture the PS4 will be, do you see that changing?

Adam Badowski: We know a lot about the next gen platforms that we can't comment on yet, but our strategy is that we're always trying to maximise the quality for the platform, to use its particular strengths and advantages. Usually the weakest platform dictates the quality for all platforms, but high-quality visuals are our trademark so we need to approach each platform as individually as possible.

Of course, large scale technical decisions in our engine, such as opting for 64-but architecture, Direct X11, are made globally, but we do try to treat platforms individually. PC allows for more at the moment, but new platforms are stepping up. In the future, it should be much easier to unify the requirements. Some things, like control schemes, will still need to be tailored to the platforms but the new platforms will unify requirements.

PC was the lead platform for Witcher 2 because it was the most powerful, but that might change in the future.

Q: Does the Steambox excite you?

Adam Badowski: I think the Steambox will be awesome. Because Valve is a digital platform holder, the final contact with the customer will be as easy as possible. That's why we're looking forward to it. We're in contact with Steam, so we're going to be engaged in the process.

Q: GoG has obviously been a tremendous asset, and sets out a stance on DRM which has proven extremely popular with fans. Where do you see the platform evolving to next?

Adam Badowski: GoG is the second biggest independent digital platform after Steam. Of course, the gap is great, but we are second. Origin is bigger too, because it sells games exclusively, but for independent platforms, we're the second biggest. Of course GoG started with older games but has moved to newer games more recently - you can expect that strategy to continue.

We expect fewer problems with porting games to the PS4 than the PS3, which had a completely different infrastructure. Previously, we developed games first on the Xbox 360 and then translated them onto the PS3. It took a lot of time and money to port. Now we develop first on the PC and port to all other consoles