14 DAY TRIAL // The upcoming first-person shooter Battlefield Hardline’s single-player campaign will revolve around a classic crime drama revenge story, following a framed police officer named Nick, looking to clear his name.
The news comes from a developer panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, where the upcoming game’s creative director, Ian Milham, said that Nick was framed after a drug bust didn’t go as planned.
Inspired by classic cop shows, the storyline will follow Nick as he goes undercover in meth country, attempting to fit into the criminal underground and figure out who framed him and how to clear his name.
"Shows where there's always a thin line between the protagonist and antagonist," were Calhoun's favorite to write, he confessed. "You've got to love your villain like he's a hero."
"The difference [in writing] this, it was really a head-twister, but I love it: You, the gamer, are the hero. Now it's a 3D world that you're taking the audience and dropping them into. I have to remember that you, the audience member, you're that character. It's very different from TV and film," Calhoun said.
Consequently, players will be able to see the story unfold from both sides, and follow the events dynamically.
The single-player campaign will feature performances from a host of notable actors, such as "Bones" and "8 Mile"’s Eugene Byrd, Kelly Hu from the "Scorpion King," Benito Martinez from "Sons of Anarchy," and "The Shield"’s Mark Rolston.
In addition to this, the story will be supervised by "Nashville" and "Justified" writer and producer Wendy Calhoun, and "Justified" Performance Director Bill Johnson will also be involved with the project.
Developer Visceral Games’ upcoming shooter offers a different kind on online multiplayer experience, replacing the war front of the Battlefield series with an urban environment and the chance to play cops and robbers.
The devs said that Battlefield Hardline would greatly expand on the Levolution concept and would feature a lot of streamlined mechanics, as well as enabling players to take different routes to achieve their goals, and more overall flexibility when it comes to how to accomplish certain mission objectives.
Furthermore, although the game is fully playable, as evidenced by the short beta test that took place a while back, the developers, along with publisher Electronic Arts and Battlefield developers DICE decided to postpone its launch in order to work a little bit more on streamlining and experimenting with many of its systems.
Battlefield Hardline was originally due out in October, for the Windows PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms, but was delayed until early 2015, in order to receive more polish.
Creative Director Ian Milham said that the delay was “a real blessing, because over time, games are living longer and you only get one chance to come out.”
“When I think about the great games I remember, I had long relationships with them. I don't remember when they came out, who cares? If it's great enough, it'll transcend all that," he added.