14 DAY TRIAL // One week is left until Battlefield Hardline is officially launched and the development team at Visceral Games is ready to talk about the Battlepickup feature of the first-person shooter and the changes it has made after the player base offered its evaluation of the mechanic during a beta period in the middle of last year.
The studio has extracted loadout options from the class progression and made them available in each level for gamers who are looking for them.
Evan Champlin, the senior multiplayer level designer, explains on the official site that "We have carefully selected their positions when designing the maps. Their locations have become hot spots for action as players battle it out to get a chance to get a hold of one of these game changing weapons."
The Battlepickups can be spotted by watching for the green military weapon case in a level in Battlefield Hardline and icons are also offered on the Deploy Map, Minimap and Big Map.
Visceral Games says that the SMAW is the most capable weapon in the game because it can take out an enemy vehicle with one hit, which is very good given that just one round is provided to players.
The RPG-7 is also a powerful anti-vehicle tool, loaded with two rounds because it cannot take out large armored targets with just one hit and players need to maneuver it to take out their weak spots.
The M240B and its powerful 7.62x51mm mean that the machine gun is effective against both vehicles and infantry, and the MG36 offers another solid weapon choice.
The grapple hook and the zipline can be chosen as loadout options, but they are also offered on the map, as are defibrilators.
Battlefield Hardline aims for both balance and dynamism
The first beta for the shooter created by Visceral Games was a disaster and was the main reason why it was pushed from its original launch date of late 2014.
The extra time has allowed the studio to make sure that the ecosystem of the shooter is better balanced and that gamers have plenty of options when it comes to weapons and tactics on all maps and in all modes.
Battlefield Hardline is at the moment set to be offered on March 17 in the United States and two days later in Europe, and gamers can enjoy it for ten hours as long as they subscribe to the EA Access service on the Xbox One on March 12.
