EA’s press briefing at Gamescom featured the Battlefield Hardline team presenting two new trailers for their game, due in early 2015. The first is 12 minutes of unedited single player footage geared towards highlighting aspects of Battlefield Hardline’s story mode that set it aside from previous Battlefields and the FPS genre altogether. The second trailer is a short 2 minute glimpse at a new multiplayer game mode for Battlefield Hardline called Rescue.
Here is the single player footage:
The game director speaking in the background only interrupts gameplay to point out one thing: choices. It seems that Visceral Games wants to add another layer of depth to Battlefield Hardline through giving the player tons of options. Not only is there stealth versus loud and proud play styles, but there are different routes to navigating an environment and different methods of achieving an objective. Similar to the Metro series, players can choose lethal or non-lethal takedowns. While, I’m sure the lethality of your attacks won’t have the same moral weight to the story that it does in Metro. But still. It’s cool. It’s also more realistic. Cops don’t go around shooting and strangling every criminal they see. Hopefully.
Another thing I noticed that was not especially pointed out is the xp/currency system in the campaign. Rather than earning XP in game you earn cash. Different play styles will give you different rewards. Certain actions will grant you a big cash bonus, like arresting a high value target.
We also saw the introduction of the scanner, similar to the tactical binos in Battlefield 4‘s campaign. However, the scanner gives information about your enemies and lets you eavesdrop on conversations. You can pick up odd and hilarious sound bites from your enemies as you creep past them. Visceral Games is definitely trying to add comedic relief to Battlefield Hardline.
Now onto the multiplayer trailer:
Though this trailer is most likely much more cinematic than actual online matches will play out, it gives a quick summary of how Battlefield Hardline’s Rescue mode works and plays without geeky background voices explaining it to us.
Criminals defend hostages and hopefully don’t act as oblivious as they do in the trailer. Law enforcement storms the building and fights their way to the hostages using new gadgets and tools like riot shields and tasers to help them along the way. It sounds like there is a time limit for law enforcement to escape with the hostages after which a Levolution moment will occur and end the game and the criminal team will win. The trailer also features a new map and Levolution moment. The map looks like some sort of marijuana warehouse with multiple floors above and below ground. In the basement some kind of gas tank can be ignited to set the whole building ablaze. Can the criminal team ignite it as a last ditch suicidal effort to prevent law enforcement from escaping? I guess we will find out.
What do you think of the new trailers? Let me know in the comments below!
