10 Years Ago, Battlefield Dared To Break The Mold And Fans Rejected It
Breaking the law.
The Battlefield series has a ton of weird, fun spinoffs. In 2006, Battlefield 2142 courted the science-fiction-loving Halo crowd after two grounded games set during WWII and modern times. Battlefield Heroes, despite failing to sustain its dominance in an era before the free-to-play shooter, was about 10 years ahead of its time. Even the excellent Bad Company games, which gave console players a more focused Battlefield experience, can be considered a departure from the core series’ hardcore PC roots.
But of all the weird spin-offs the series had over the years, one Battlefield title has the distinction of being a total deviation from not only its series, but from nearly all its major competitors. Ten years ago, DICE released Battlefield Hardline, a gutsy turn away from the militarized frontlines of overseas conflict to the battle being waged in America’s backyard.
Hardline ditches the camouflage, flak jackets, and assault rifles for handcuffs, a firearm, and a badge. Players assume the role of Miami police officers trying to take down cartels operating in the shadows. That significant change in setting ripples across every aspect of what Battlefield typically is in interesting ways. Instead of operating tanks and fighter jets, you’re using SWAT vehicles, police cruisers, helicopters, and grappling hooks.
Multiplayer modes were no longer about controlling key points on a map to push back enemy forces. A team of 16 cops sought a team of 16 robbers trying to pull off various dastardly deeds. One mode had the robber team trying to extract stolen cash from a bank vault with the police team hot on their tail. Another had police trying to save hostages from the clutches of criminals. One of the most compelling new modes was Hotwire. It was a twist on Battlefield’s Conquest mode, except static control points were now high speed vehicles that the opposing team must stop in high speed car chases across large urban maps.
The most interesting part of the package was its single player mode. Coming off two abysmal campaigns, DICE stepped away from making a campaign and instead enlisted the help of Visceral Games, the team behind Dead Space and Dante’s Inferno. And in typical fashion, Visceral delivered.
You play a young detective chasing leads on the source of a new illegal substance hitting the streets, who soon finds out that the side of the law can be just as corrupt as the lawbreakers. The adventure is a city-spanning police procedural with setpieces straight out of a Michael Bay flick. Solid writing and great performances from character actors like Philip Anthony-Rodriguez and Mark Rolsten make this otherwise by the numbers story shine.
High speed PvP police chases were commonplace in Hardline’s thrilling multiplayer modes.
Like multiplayer, the law enforcement theme turns Battlefield’s typical gameplay on its head. Instead of cutting down bad guys in a rain of bullets, there’s an emphasis here on stealth and non-lethal force. Players can beat entire missions sneaking around, flashing their badge and handcuffing the perps. Doing so earns players intel and rewards that help them along the way. For a while, Hardline would feature the only Battlefield campaign worth playing barring the two Bad Company games. Even a decade later, there’s no first-person shooter that plays quite like it.
Battlefield Hardline was the total package. It was an ideal spinoff, one where the developers tried its best to differentiate a follow-up coming just 15 months after its predecessor to make it worth players’ time.
Unfortunately, despite selling well (beating out From Software’s Bloodborne during its release week), it didn’t have the sticking power of the Battlefield games that came before or after it. Some fans had the false impression that Hardline was a Battlefield 4 expansion being sold at full retail price, ignoring its high-production campaign, brand new modes and setting. And among the million who did enjoy it, few stuck around past the release of Battlefield 1 the following year.
There’s an emphasis on non-lethality in Battlefield Hardline, a big departure for the military shooter.
Hardline suffered the same fate as the divisive Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare that dropped just a few months prior. It was too far removed from what long-time fans expected. And the number of players open-minded enough to recognize that these differences were what made it great wasn’t enough to keep the game’s multiplayer afloat.
Still, Battlefield Hardline is a fun and often forgotten chapter in the series’ history that precedes nine years of missteps for the series. Looking back, it represents one of the boldest creative decisions for a well-established FPS series ever. Once the Battlefield series gets back on track, I’d love to see DICE aspire to this level of creativity once again.
