14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Visceral Games says that it is aiming to introduce some non-linear elements in the single player portion of the upcoming Battlefield Hardline in order to offer players an experience that is unlike any seen in the first person shooter so far.
Ian Milham, the creative director working on the experience at the moment, tells Rock, Paper, Shotgun that his team has plenty of ideas about how to put the main character in situations where he has to decide on how to act next, influencing the story and the world around him.
He states, "When we were thinking about how to do this game, I think anybody who knows us at Visceral knows that single-player is near and dear to our heart. We’ve done a pretty OK job of it before, and we have some pretty cool ideas for this one. On the single-player side the stuff that’s important to us is maybe not do as much of a single-path linear roller coaster that’s been done before. We want more tactical choice, more player choice."
Traditionally the single player element has been of limited importance for the Battlefield series because the core of the experience has always been linked to the multiplayer modes, the large number of players that can engage at once and the variety of the offered maps.
Milham says that his team is aiming to make sure that the single player section of Hardline reflects some of the realities of actual police work and adds, "Things to do besides just shoot everybody. That’s not really a cop thing as much."
Visceral Games has experience with single player content after delivering three titles in the Dead Space series, which focused on one character and the extraordinary circumstances that he has to deal with.
The new Battlefield spin-off will show the constant battle between law enforcement agencies and criminal cartels and the expensive and powerful weapons and gadgets that they both use.
Visceral Games has said that it is planning to deliver a more dynamic experience, with a multiplayer with smaller maps and more intense action.
Battlefield: Hardline is set to be launched in late October on the PC, the PlayStation 4, the PS3, Xbox One and the 360.
The game will have to compete directly with the Sledgehammer Games developed and Activision published Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which will arrive on November 4 on pretty much the same platforms.