Battlefield Hardline is an upcoming first person shooter videogame that is currently in development by Visceral Games, the studio that first found fame with The Lord of The Rings: The Third Age when the they were still known as EA Redwood Shores, they then exploded back into the scene with the critically acclaimed sleeper hit horror franchise, Dead Space.
Battlefield Hardline is being developed in collaboration with EA Digital Illusions CE (commonly known as DICE), the creators of the massively popular Battlefield Series and current developers of Star Wars: Battlefront. It is currently slated to be published by Electronic Arts who will be bringing the game to multiple platforms across both the current and last generations of consoles.
Battlefield Hardline is expected to arrive on October 21st of 2014 and will be available on Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. Battlefield Hardline is going to be running on the powerful internally developed Frostbite 3 engine that was created by DICE.
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Battlefield Hardline was first revealed officially to the public on May 27th of 2014 when Steve Papoutsis (Vice president and General Manager of Visceral Games) posted a blog post on the Electronic Arts website. In the blog post he says, “On behalf of everyone at EA and Visceral Games, I’m fired up to confirm our next project – Battlefield Hardline. The game launches this fall and it’s a brand new series in the Battlefield franchise, set against the backdrop of a genre we all love – the war on crime and the battle between cops and criminals.”
The game was set to be shown for the first time during E3 2014 in the form of a gameplay trailer, but this was leaked before the show alongside other information regarding details of the game. At the time of the leak, the game was being referred to as Omaha, misleading some fans to believe the game would be set in World Aar II. [The Omaha Beach Landings are one of the most well known examples of World War II history; when the allied forces assaulted Germany occupied France with an invasion force of 43,250 infantry men.]
The game’s creative director, Ian Milham has made it known that Visceral had been working on Battlefield Hardline for a long time, possibly as early as mid 2012, he said “Visceral started work on Battlefield Hardline about a year before Dead Space 3 shipped.”
The Battlefield series (as the name implies) is often set against the backdrop of sensitive and volatile political situations and intense war zones, the difference in Battlefield Hardline is that the combat is intentionally more urban, and rather than having armies and nations face off against each other, the players take control of either “cops” or “robbers”, thus fundamentally changing the game.
Players got their first taste of this cops and robbers gameplay on June 9th 2014 when the game went into public Beta, this Beta was expertly announced as part of the E3 announcement, this kept momentum for the game rolling, the Beta will be ending on June 26th 2014, extending it’s running time by a full week.
While the fundamental core of Battlefield Hardline remain unchanged, the titles new gameplay mechanics are what make the most recent iteration of the action packed first person shooter unique. Scrapping the now seemingly copy – pasted military themed backdrop that has taken up most of the first person shooter market and focusing on a war on crime, Battlefield Hardline takes the players into the ranks of a Special Response Unit of cops and the close knit group of criminals.
For the sake of example; players that are taking control of the police forces and will have access to military grade weaponry and vehicles, including fast moving helicopters for rapid deployment as well as tasers and cuffs for nonlethal takedowns. Borrowing from the debatably successfully Battlefield 4 video game, Battlefield Hardline will be making use of the “Levolution” gameplay mechanic, this allows players to dynamically interact with the environment and alter the game world in ways that can change the gameplay.
Beneath is a list of new gameplay modes:
Heist: It’s up to the players to extract packages from armoured transport vehicles by removing the doors with explosives, then transporting them to an extraction zone before being stopped by the police. Criminals are victorious if they succesfully make away with the goods, police are victorious if the criminals are neutralized.
Blood Money: It’s the job of both teams to retrieve money from open crates located in the middle of the map and deliver it to their armoured trucks. Both teams can steal from the other and the winner is the first team to deposit $5,000,000 in their transports.
Hotwire Mode: It’s up to the rapid response police force to pursue and arrest the fleeing criminals.
Rescue: The criminal team has taken hostages and it’s up to the police forces to safely rescue them.
Classes in Battlefield Hardline share the same name regardless of the faction that the player chooses. They are listed below:
The Operator – The operator performs the expected tasks of the team medic for both the police and criminal faction, they are outfitted with assault weaponry and medical supplies.
The Mechanic – The mechanic takes to the streets both destroying and repairing vehicles. They are armed with sub machine guns and shoulder launched missles. They also have repair torches.
The Enforcer – As the name implies, the Enforcer reinforces the existing elements of their faction. Boasting an array of Light Machine Guns for suppressing fire and Shotguns that bring formidable stopping power to the game. They also pack explosives and ammunition boxes that allies can use to resupply.
The Professional – The professional is a reconnaissance expert within their faction. Specialists in long range engagements, they bring their powerful sniper rifles to the fight. They also have potent surveillance equipment to keep team mates alerted to enemy movements. Their armoury also houses anti personnel equipment.
Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.