Battlefield games all feel pretty much the same, unlike Call of Duty, which has at least attempted to break the mould several times (Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare).
For DICE to take a risk on a relatively new setting was bold if not a little foolhardy, with players being used to massive battles between powerful nations, reducing the scope of the conflict to a war between police and criminals was dangerous, and despite its poor reception, it worked very well, providing new settings and scenarios that would otherwise be impossible.
Unfortunately, a growing hostility towards police (due to real-life cases of systematic abuse) and a knee-jerk reaction towards the inclusion of a criminal faction resulted in Hardline attracting the wrong type of attention, which, coupled with performance issues and unaddressed progression bugs, ensured that Hardline was never able to live up to its full potential nor eclipse the success of its predecessor (Battlefield 4) which would recover from its disastrous launch and a difficult first year to become one of the most popular and long-lasting titles in the franchise’s history.
Image credit Battlefield Hardline - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Dice.
I must preface this by saying that the campaign has a rather nasty unaddressed bug on PC, which can result in progress being reset, and while I loved the campaign, I cannot recommend playing it on PC.
Battlefield Hardline was DICE’s attempt to revolutionise the genre, and while they made plenty of mistakes along the way, the Episodic campaign, which was structured by a mid-2000s crime drama, was fantastic; as someone who plays a lot of singleplayer content in multiplayer-focused titles, I can safely say that the campaign in Battlefield Hardline was one of my favourite singleplayer FPs campaigns.
Unfortunately, I could not finish it due to losing all progression; however, I was able to watch the last few chapters on youtube from someone fortunate enough not to lose all their progress on a whim.
Image credit Battlefield Hardline - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Dice.
Gamers have become accustomed to receiving bigger and bigger equals, and when Battlefield Hardline launched with less content than Battlefield 4, there was an outcry, especially when, up to that point, Battlefield 4 was still widely regarded as a near-total failure and was far from the high point of the franchise which it is widely regarded today.
While subsequent updates added additional weapons and maps, many people felt they were a step backwards, lacking the scope and environmental destruction present in earlier titles such as Battlefield 4, which remains one of the best examples of environmental destruction in a first-person shooter to his day.
Image credit Battlefield Hardline - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Dice.
Battlefield Hardline is a shooter video game developed by Dice and published by Electronic Arts, it was released on 17 March 2015 and retails for $39.99.
Battlefield Hardline is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Battlefield Hardline is no longer in active development, and the developers have moved on to other projects.
As of January 2024, around 2,500 people play Battlefield Hardline on a fairly regular basis.
Battlefield Hardline is essentially dead, and finding full lobbies in a reasonable amount of time is difficult in well-populated regions, and next to impossible in less populated regions.
As of January 2024, the PC community is almost entirely dead, and when I attempted to play, there were only 11 people online, myself included.
While the console communities do slightly better, overall, Battlefield Hardline is dead (or close to it) on all platforms.
Battlefield Hardline supports:
Battlefield Hardline offers the following matchmaking options:
The Battlefield Hardline in-game store sells:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Battlefield Hardline is rated PEGI 18+ and contains the following:
Battlefield Hardline had a great campaign, but a combination of poor optimisation, unaddressed progression loss, and an almost non-existent community make it impossible for me to recommend it at this time.
