14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Papoutsis, the general manager of Visceral Games and executive producer on the new Battlefield Hardline, says that despite the disappointment shown by the community, the first testing stage for the first-person shooter was important because it allowed his team to make some big changes to the core features.
Speaking to VG247, he explains that, as soon as the fans got their hands on the multiplayer experience, they expressed their frustration at having to use the same type of weapons for both sides, something that has been remedied in new versions.
The developer states, “We wondered if people would like it if they were invested in their P90, but when they were on the other faction they couldn’t use it? Previous Battlefield games have had faction-specific weapons. After the feedback from the beta we’ve decided to make them faction-specific. There’s some weapons you’ll only get when you’re a criminal and vice-versa. It’s an easy one but it was surprising to us.”
Because the title no longer deals with military forces but criminal gangs and law enforcement, the player base was also unwilling to accept that heavy weapons, including RPGs, were available for character classes without any sort of restrictions.
Battlefield Hardline and vehicle loadouts
Visceral Games listened to the feedback coming from the community, and the team decided to eliminate some weapons from the environments entirely unless a team manages to capture some areas and unlock access.
The developer adds, “We also came up with the notion of ‘junk in the trunk’ – what if we allowed players to equip special items to their vehicle instead of their inventory loadout. It goes back to movies where bad guys pop open the trunk to grab something big. When you play the game, if you set up your vehicle loadout to have a specific weapon in the trunk and you control the vehicle you can use that item.”
Battlefield Hardline was supposed to be out in the fall of this year in order to offer competition to the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare from Sledgehammer Games and Activision.
Concerns about quality led to the announcement of a delay until the first few months of 2015, and Visceral Games says that it plans to launch an entirely new beta stage which will show off some of the changes that have been made and reassures the entire community that they will have plenty of content to enjoy when the title is fully out.