It’s been roughly six months since Battlefield: Hardline swapped the skyscrapers of Shanghai for the streets of Los Angeles earlier this summer in its E3 debut and in that time, it seems like the game’s blown up ten LA’s. You can pin that number at eleven after the latest trailer for the game.
In ‘Karma,’ EA and DICE showcase the latest and greatest ways you can bust criminals or actually be them in Hardline‘s dangerous game of cops and robbers. Some of them may include disregarding every traffic law in the state of California as well as using a small army’s worth of ammunition in just one wall. From fast-paced car chases to zip-line escapes, Hardline seems to emphasize mobility above all else, if not the same trigger-happy gunplay of its predecessors.
By any rough estimate, the game seems intent on combining a variety of familiar EA properties – Criterion’s work with Need for Speed comes to mind as one of them, looking at the handling of the game’s seemingly superhuman cars.
Another could be Ubisoft’s own cat-and-mouse game of Rainbow Six: Siege, but Hardline looks like a more bullet-laden affair than the latter’s hostage crisis.
You could top it off and argue that Hardline now coincidentally imitates Grand Theft Auto V‘s first-person mode, to no fault of its own, thanks to Rockstar’s recent remastering of its own Californian playground. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s remember that unlike GTA V, all the dogs and cats evacuated LA, at least.
And no doubt for the first time in the series history, Hardline includes non-lethal takedowns as part of the cops’ move set, which is to say you’ll break people’s arms, but they’ll still be alive by the time you toss them in your squad car.
Beyond its more explosive appeal, EA and DICE still claim that the game boasts a healthy serving of single-player on top of its online multiplayer experience for those of you disappointed with Battlefield 4‘s campaign. Hardline, it claims, will have a campaign worthy of a TV-drama. We’ll have to see about that.
Battlefield: Hardline cashes in on your cops and robbers fantasies Mar. 17th for Playstation 4, Xbox One, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC.