While the Battlefield franchise has long been known for its top tier multiplayer experience, it has only just recently tried its hand at story-driven single player campaigns. As a result, the single player portions in recent Battlefield iterations have been mediocre at best, derivative at worst.
But, with the introduction of Battlefield Hardline on Tuesday morning came a new hope for the franchise. Now that Visceral Games is in charge of developing their own Battlefield iteration, the assumption is that the developer will bring its strengths in the single player space to EA and DICE's flagship franchise.
Visceral Games' VP and General Manager Steve Papoutsis further echoed that sentiment in the official announcement post for Battlefield Hardline. He also promised that the developer will "add new twists and turns to the foundation of Battlefield multiplayer," which should provide comfort to those worried Hardline might be a single player-first experience.
There’s been a lot of buzz today about Battlefield Hardline — we’re getting ready for E3 and fans found some details on our website about what we’re working on for the show. We’ve been reading all of your comments and we’re excited to be going into more detail soon on the ways we’re adding new twists and turns to the foundation of Battlefield multiplayer and more about how we’re bringing our strengths at Visceral to single player.
Of course, Visceral's strengths with single player experiences are most evident in the Dead Space franchise, which, despite offering a multiplayer variant with the second game, has always been focused on a unique story bolstered by a very specific atmosphere. In fact, Dead Space has such a rich universe that the franchise has expanded to include comic books and an animated film.
Obviously, moving from the survival shooter genre to the military FPS is not a 1-to-1 transition, but we're intrigued by the prospect of the developer behind Dead Space bringing their storytelling skills to Battlefield. The war on crime concept that's at the center of Hardline's premise sounds intriguing on its own, and in the right hands could help this spin-off stand out from the main entries in the series.
However, Visceral and EA are not ready to fully remove the shroud of mystery surrounding Battlefield Hardline just yet. Rather, it appears the team wanted to get out ahead of the rumors, and confirm the game's existence as well as sharing a little bit of its history. As it turns out, Hardline has been in the works for quite some time — rumors of a police-focused Battlefield game have been circulating for a while — and now it will presumably trade-off release years with DICE's numbered Battlefield entries.
Battlefield isn't the only franchise that the two developers are sharing either — they are both hard at work on their own Star Wars games. DICE is working on a successor to Star Wars: Battlefront while Visceral's game, which boasts Amy Hennig as Creative Director, is more nebulous at this point. However, we hope to hear more about those two Star Wars games, and to see Battlefield Hardline in action, at EA's E3 2014 press conference on June 8th.
How do you hope Visceral improves the series' single player experience in Battlefield Hardline? What about multiplayer?
Battlefield Hardline releases this year for current and last-gen platforms.
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Source: EA
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