E3 2014: Battlefield Hardline Officially Revealed

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… It’s hard to reconcile how I feel about the Battlefield series, and I’m sure many who enjoy the series agree with me. I really love the class based and team play style of the series over twitch shooters like Call of Duty. That being said, Battlefield 4 launched late last year in a nearly unplayable state.

Countless bugs, rubber banding netcode, and a tremendous amount of unlocks that seem to push paying for unlocks. While I tried as much as I could to love the game, it just didn’t seem to love me back. With snippets of Battlefield Hardline steadily leaking last week, I once again got excited. Hoping that the Visceral-developed Hardline was just using the Battlefield moniker to gain market traction, I briefly held onto dreams of a Left 4 Dead/Payday style small team heist multiplayer, even chancing on a decent single player knowing the developer has delivered in the past.

Those dreams were laid to rest at the EA press conference. Hardline multiplayer, for the least, will still feature 32 player maps of cops vs. robbers. In what to me looked like something that could be Battlefield 4 DLC, opposing teams battled it out in the streets of Los Angeles. Innovations seemed to come in player deployable zip lines, as well as stun weapons and zip ties for cops. Don’t get me wrong, I would love for this to be a great game and the trailer looked exciting. But I’ve been burned by battlefield before, and I know im not alone.

Oh, I see how Battlefield: Hardline differs. It's just Battlefield with Cops vs Robbers. #E3 #EAE3 #4PNE3

— Jeremy Gulliford (@Unigma) June 9, 2014

Great ideas have to be followed with great execution, and considering how Battlefield 4 is still recieveing major gameplay fixes nearly eight months out I'm not going to hold my breath. Still, here’s to holding out on a fool's hope.

Gamers who own Battlefield 4 on PS4s can try to grab access to the closed beta available NOW on PS4 and PC.