14 DAY TRIAL // Visceral Games promises to offer a completely relatable experience in the upcoming cops and robbers first-person shooter Battlefield Hardline, with not one single spec of anything that might resemble some "gravel voiced super soldiers" in sight.
"Don't get me wrong. Like all gamers, we've enjoyed some great, linear, roller coaster style games in our day. We may have even made one or two. But these days we think gamers are looking for more tactical choice and depth in their games, not just whack-a-mole shooting galleries," Battlefield Hardline creative director Ian Milham writes on the Battlefield Blog.
The Battlefield Hardline beta offered a taste of the action to come, and although it didn't take anyone by surprise with any ground-breaking innovations, Visceral is confident that taking the action to the city streets and parking lots of Miami allowed them to introduce a wealth of choices to the in-game world.
Milham describes a single-player campaign that is completely different from anything else that the Battlefield series has come up with so far, even going through the trouble of pointing out what kind of choices players can expect when they play the game, whether to attack via ground or to use a zipline in order to get over a group of enemies.
In addition to this, the police tie-in also introduces a new layer of choice, where players have to decide whether they intimidate their opponents or reach for the taser, if they move in fast and take down a guy that has a warrant on him and get some quick cash, or if they take out the entire group.
"We are bringing more depth and choice to our campaign, and by using a TV crime drama aesthetic, delivering a different type of storytelling and a new tone that feels different from the from most of the first person shooters we’'e all played a lot of lately," Milham explains.
He also shares that the development team has teamed up with talented crime drama specialists, such as director Bill Johnson and Narrative Consultant Wendy Calhoun, of Justified fame. Furthermore, the game's cast includes actors from True Detective, CSI Miami, The Shield, Law and Order and other acclaimed cop shows.
"This is a story that takes place in the grey area between cops and criminals, with police who aren't all good and thieves with a cause to fight for. As players, you'll get to see things from both sides," Milham reveals.
Battlefield Hardline is coming out on October 21 in North America and October 24 in Europe, for the Windows PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms.