What is Battlefield: Hardline?
Battlefield: Hardline is the brand new 2014 Battlefield game that comes with a twist. DICE and Visceral Games have teamed up to make a huge shift away from the military theme to cops and robbers.
Thanks to Visceral Games, responsible for the Dead Space series, the game will feature a more expansive single-player campaign, while still retaining the multiplayer experience that Battlefield fans know and love.
At E3 we've only had hands-on time with the mutliplayer portion of the game, so we've yet to see the single player campaign in action. However, we have had time to play the new Battlefield: Hardline multiplayer mode known as Heist, which pitches a team of cops and robbers against each other trying to get a load of money back to your base, or steal it from the opposition's safe house.
This new mode can support up to 32 players at once, making for the same explosive multiplayer action we've grown accustomed to with Battlefield games.
We trialled the new Los Angeles map, obviously picked to celebrate the location of the E3 gaming conference, which is compact and frantic, as you can use the new police vehicles to your advantage.
For example, you'll have access to the standard cop car for running down robbers on the run, or the armoured 4x4 vehicles, which can blast out smoke bombs to confuse the enemy while you mow them down with bullets.
If you're looking for a speedy exit or entrance into the fray, you can always grab a motorcycle with a team mate riding with you to take down the opposition looking to rifle through your loot.
Each player can carry up to a maximum of $1 million each run, but you'll need to stack up those bills in $100,000 piles in your bag, waiting a short period for each to be deposited. Lucky gamers will be able to grab their maximum cash quota and dash back to their safe house before being gunned down, but obviously this is easier said than done.
Plus if you do die, the enemy can pick up your dropped stash and take it back to their base before you've even respawned.
Particularly cunning and quick players looking to protect their base will also be able to utilise the maps' in-built distractions, such as raising the bollards in the entrance of the parking lot to incapacitate enemy vehicles, letting you take them out before they have a chance to exit their chosen ride.
We did find ourselves driving through bollards and trees in the beta yet, but this will no doubt be fixed by the final version. You wouldn't find things like that happening in Battlefield 4.
Although we're currently only in the beta multiplayer stages, we were a little disappointing in the graphical fidelity of certain aspects of Battlefield: Hardline. When you compare it to Battlefield 4, there are distinct graphical downgrades in terms of environments and guns, but again we're putting this down to the beta status. The in-car dashboard is far from crisp and detailed, in fact it looks like something you'd find in PS2 driving games in its current state.
Of course, graphics aren't the main appeal of the Battlefield multiplayer, but as we were playing on the PS4, we would have hoped that the graphics were a little more detailed. As we said though, DICE has several months before the actual game is released on October 21, so there is plenty of time to tweak the graphics.
From what we've seen so far, it looks like Battlefield: Hardline will offer the same level of multiplayer as previous titles, but with the military themes replaced by good old cops and robbers.
The LA multiplayer map certainly looks promising and we'll be intrigued to see how the new Heist mode runs in other maps, especially larger ones.
First Impressions
Hopefully, Battlefield: Hardline will offer a super-strong storyline to partner its already critically acclaimed multiplayer gameplay. From what we've seen so far, the latter looks to be just as immersive, explosive and addictive as its always been, but with the cops and robbers twist. We've not seen the single-player campaign in action yet, but that will be the key to Battlefield: Hardline becoming the best Battlefield yet.
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