Play now: Battlefield Hardline
Police, camera, action! The classic shooter replayed on PS Now
Back in 2015 it was easy to raise a cynical eyebrow at this FPS’ release. EA loves a marketing-savvy franchise, and what could be better than branding its narrative cop shooter as a Battlefield game? A risk-free release of a shooter that takes chances with its setup – war is replaced by the war on crime.
Fresh from delivering the Dead Space trilogy, Visceral Games’ credibility for creating narrative action was sky-high. Battlefield Hardline was its swansong. The usual Battlefield tools are retconned into a police context – a scanner detects and logs evidence, and can be used to stake out criminals, tag alarms, and more. Stealth kills are now arrests; wave your badge and hardened goons lose their will to commit crime, drop their weapons, and welcome a good handcuffing. The game’s AI isn’t the smartest we’ve faced.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
The story is divided into episodes that present as a glossy US procedural TV show. The dialogue and direction recall Michael Mann1 while the intense car chases, explosive shootouts, and love of action is pure Bad Boys. EA wants us to take Hardline seriously but we can imagine a dev shrugging “I’m too old for this *blorp!*” and throwing every cliché at the screen. Games in 2015 were on the cusp of shifting towards more
mature, meaningful content but devs couldn’t quite put away the old toys.
It means character progression and any social commentary are jettisoned in favour of lazy genre stereotypes. However, Hardline’s writers are clearly having a blast, serving up flamboyant dealers, crooked cops, partners who are back on the job “against doctors’ orders”, and more double crosses than an entire season of Loki.2
Fun as it is, the focus on narrative has a noticeable impact on the action. This is a slower game than a typical Battlefield, and an over-reliance on stealth can make things drag.
FOOTNOTES 1 The pace and camera beats of a TV cop show are pitch-perfect. 2 The thin blue line is crossed, smudged, and completely redrawn in a story straight out of Hollywood.