Battlefield Hardline
Battlefield Hardline is a 2015 first-person shooter game developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts. It was released in March 2015 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Hardline focuses on crime, heist and policing elements instead of military warfare. Upon release, the game received a mixed critical reception, with critics praising the game's multiplayer mode, accessibility and voice acting, while criticizing the narrative and stealth gameplay. It was the final Battlefield game to be released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms and also the last game to be developed by Visceral Games before the company shut down in 2017.
Gameplay
The focus of the game is the "war on crime", breaking away from the military setting that characterized the series. As such, the main factions in Hardline are the police Special Response Units and criminals. Players have access to various military-grade weapons and vehicles, such as the Lenco BearCat, as well as having police equipment such as tasers and handcuffs.Hardline also uses the "Levolution" mechanic from Battlefield 4. For example, in the map "Downtown" players can send a construction crane crashing into the building, ripping down debris from the central buildings in downtown, which falls down on the streets of Los Angeles. This time, every map features multiple Levolution events, both small and large.
Many new game modes are featured in Hardline, including "Heist", "Rescue", "Hotwire", "Blood Money", and "Crosshair" Mode.
- Heist: The criminals must break into a cash filled vault then move the cash filled packages to an extraction point; the police must stop them. If the Criminals manage to escape by bringing all the money to the extraction point, they win.
- Blood Money: Both factions must retrieve money from an open crate in the center of the map, then move it back to their respective side's armored truck. Players can also steal money from the opposing team's truck. The team that first deposits $5 million worth of money into their truck or the team with the most money under a time limit wins.
- Hotwire: Drivable cars take the role of traditional Conquest "flags". Like Conquest, capturing cars will bleed the enemy team's reinforcement tickets. The team who reduces the other's to zero or who has the most tickets remaining after the time limit wins.
- Rescue: In a 3 minute long 5 vs 5 competitive mode, S.W.A.T. officers must try to rescue hostages held by criminal forces. The cops win by either rescuing the hostage or by killing all the criminals. Criminals win by killing all the cops, or defending the hostages until the negotiations are over. Each player has only one life in this mode, which means no respawns.
- Crosshair: The second competitive game mode in Battlefield Hardline. Crosshair is also 3 minutes long, 5 vs 5 with only one life. In Crosshair the criminals are trying to kill a player controlled VIP on the cops side who is a former gang member turned states witness. The criminals win by killing the VIP and the cops win by getting the VIP to the extraction point.
Synopsis
Setting
is embroiled in a drug war and Officer Nicholas "Nick" Mendoza has just made detective. Alongside his partner, veteran detective Khai Minh Dao, he follows the drug supply chain from the streets to the source. In a series of increasingly off-the-books cases, the two detectives come to realize that power and corruption can affect both sides of the law.Plot
In 2012, Miami Police Detectives Nick Mendoza and Carl Stoddard make a drug bust that goes violent. After arresting a fleeing suspect, Captain Julian Dawes has Nick partner up with Khai Minh Dao to follow a lead to cocaine broker Tyson Latchford. Forcing his associate Tap to wear a wire, they find a new drug called Hot Shot being sold in the streets of Miami and rescue Tyson from a group of armed men. In the process Khai is severely wounded, putting her out of action for several weeks. After returning, Dawes orders the two to bring in Leo Ray from the Elmore Hotel but are forced to fight their way through armed men connected to drug dealer Remy Neltz, who is distributing the Hot Shot drug. While capturing Leo, Khai beats him up for seemingly insulting her.Leo's information leads the two detectives to the Everglades, where drug bales are being dropped. Investigating the area, they discover several of Neltz's drug operations and Leo's mutilated corpse, who was presumably killed for cooperating with the Miami Police. They eventually find Neltz only to escape back to Miami. Before leaving, he mentions that he took a deal from Stoddard. The officers corner him in a Miami warehouse only for Stoddard to kill Neltz as he was about to elaborate more on their deal. Nick leaves in disgust after Stoddard and Khai take some cash before more officers arrive. Later, as a hurricane makes landfall, Dawes sends Nick and Khai back to the crime scene for any evidence incriminating Stoddard. Finding Neltz's recording implicating Stoddard, Nick finds his former partner in a meeting with other dealers but is forced to work with him to rescue Khai from more armed men. The three later meet Dawes, who destroys the evidence implicating Stoddard and revealing that himself and Khai are corrupt. The three betray Nick due to his refusal to go along with their scheme, framing him for laundering Neltz's drug money.
Three years later in 2015, while on a prison bus, Nick escapes with the help of Tap and Tyson. The mastermind behind Nick's escape is none other than Khai. Despite raw feelings about her betrayal and being framed, Nick leaves with Khai and Tyson for Los Angeles. Khai briefs Nick that during the three years he has been in prison, Dawes founded private law enforcement firm Preferred Outcomes, having 'cleaned up' Miami and is starting to expand into other US cities. Wanting to ruin Dawes, Khai sends Nick and Tyson to rendezvous with Marcus "Boomer" Boone and the three of them disrupt Korean Mafia leader Kang's drug business. Although not finding much, Nick and Khai follow another lead to the house of drug kingpin Neil Roark. During Roark's meeting, Nick comes up with the idea to steal Dawes' money before he can launder it and uses Khai's phone as a makeshift tracking device by placing it in a briefcase to be taken to where the rest of Dawes' money is being kept. After surviving a brief assault by Roark's men, Nick and Khai make their escape.
Dawes' money is kept in the penthouse of his corporate HQ skyscraper back in Miami and behind an impregnable vault, Boomer calls a former associate of his for a safecracking robot. He and Nick drive to the desert to meet Boomer's contact, his ex-girlfriend Dune, who sets up a meeting with her father, Tony Alpert. Alpert backstabs them, however, revealing he knows Nick is an escaped felon and that Stoddard has placed a bounty on him for his capture alive. Nick and Boomer escape their prison and retrieve their gear from Alpert's compound. Along the way, Nick discovers that Alpert was behind the creation and manufacturing of the Hot Shot drug, and murdered an ATF agent named Darius Barnes to cover up his plans of starting a civil war. Dune helps the two escape to an abandoned airfield, but they separate after surviving Alpert's ambush at a gas station. At the airfield, Nick retrieves the safecracking robot and wins a tank duel against Alpert, before he and Boomer escape in a plane Boomer had repaired.
As Khai, Nick, Boomer, and Tyson prepare to leave for Miami they are ambushed by Stoddard and his men. Nick kills his former partner and sends a picture of Stoddard's body to Dawes. The group arrive in Miami and infiltrate Preferred Outcomes HQ. They find the vault in Dawes' penthouse only to find it booby-trapped. Tyson is gravely wounded by the blast but survives. Nick answers Khai's ringing phone in the empty vault to hear Dawes on the other side, telling Nick to come find him at Santa Rosita off the coast of Florida. Nick departs from his group on the island, who leave to find medical attention for Tyson, and infiltrates it alone to Dawes' mansion. Nick finds his former captain in his office, where Dawes tells him that he wishes Nick to join him and take over Preferred Outcomes once Dawes is gone and that the two are akin to be "more criminal than cop". Nick agrees to the last remark and unhesitantly shoots Dawes dead. Searching his office, he finds a letter addressed to him from Dawes explaining why he framed Nick three years earlier and follows a passage to his underground vault. Inside the vault, Nick finds Dawes' laundered fortune, which is now his, left to wonder how he will use it.
Development
Battlefield Hardline was revealed on an EA blog post by vice president and general manager of Visceral Games, Steve Papoutsis. The game was due for announcement during E3 2014, but information was leaked early. Unlike other games in the Battlefield franchise that feature military warfare, Hardline features a "cops and robbers" gameplay style. The leaked trailer refers to the game as Omaha. "Visceral started work on Battlefield Hardline about a year before Dead Space 3 shipped," creative director Ian Milham has revealed, suggesting that the game may have entered development in early 2012.On June 14, 2014, the Battlefield Hardline beta went public, coming after an official announcement at E3 2014 that the beta would be coming soon to PC and PlayStation 4. The beta ended on June 26, 2014.
Later at E3 2014, EA confirmed that the game would be running at 1080p on the PlayStation 4 and was aiming to achieve the same resolution for the Xbox One version. However, on March 8, 2015, Visceral Games revealed that the PlayStation 4 version would only run at 900p, with the Xbox One version running at 720p. On February 3, 2015, the Battlefield Hardline beta became publicly active for all platforms. It was reported that 7 million people participated in the open beta and it was met with positive reception from both critics and players. On February 24, 2015, Electronic Arts confirmed that the game had been declared gold, indicating it was being prepared for production and release.