Battlefield Hardline

Battlefield Hardline takes the franchise to a totally new level with the inclusion of "cops" and "robbers" that is pure fun!

Battlefield Hardline is a very good shooter, although it doesn't have any big innovations compared to Battlefield 4. The campaign shows a great balance between stealth and action, and the multiplayer is very deep, but it is more of the same.

An entertaining, fast-paced execution of the Battlefield engine.

Its new modes offer a lot, but certain elements feel marginalised. [May 2015, p.89]

An engaging narrative, beautiful visuals, varied gameplay, and top-notch multiplayer (that works well) all fit together to deliver one of the biggest and best experiences to be had this year thus far.

In the end, the fact that Battlefield: Hardline could easily have been Medal Of Honor: Hardline or Need For Speed: Hardline is entirely moot. Visceral has played an ace, and it’s a bona fide thriller.

Dumb AI and annoying spawn points aside, this is a nice spin-off of the Battlefield franchise, that does interesting things in both the singleplayer and the multiplayer department.

Battlefield: Hardline might not help the series evolve, but it is a solid game.

Perhaps the best praise I can heap on Hardline is for what nowadays constitutes a miraculously smooth launch; aside from a single isolated DDoS attack on Xbox One, the servers have been rock solid since release day, and the server browser has offered up endless lists of near-full matches to join.

While Hardline isn’t the Battlefield you may be used to it offers a unique approach that will surely please fans of the genre. The campaign is a big step up from previous entries and while the multiplayer anarchy has been trimmed down, the gameplay in its place is more tactical and intimate.

Its campaign is both a great shooter and a great stealth game, and its typical plot is spiced with interesting characters and sparse but punctual humor. The large-scale tactical multiplayer combat the series is known for is still as good as it’s ever been, but the speedy new Hotwire and round-based 5v5 modes provide both speed and thrills.

Hardline is an enjoyable Battlefield spin-off that's easy to recommend to the hardcore Battlefield set but has a few too many flaws to transcend the franchise.

Visceral Games flees from great battlefields of the franchise to offer skirmishes where the infantry has the upper hand. Multiplayer is as tactical and enjoyable as ever, although we miss vehicles, even when we know they are not necessary in cops vs thieves scenario. The campaign is quite interesting, although it sometimes slows down a bit.

Hardline may not revolutionize the Battlefield brand, but it fixes many of its biggest problems.

It’s easy to dismiss Hardline out of hands as being too far removed from Battlefield’s typical setting to be worthy of the name, but even as Visceral ride on the brands coattails, they’ve had the confidence to adapt that core gameplay to suit a new setting. That’s not just true of the multiplayer, but also the single player story and its compelling tale of drugs and police corruption.

Hardline is a great game if considered on its own merits, but it’s not the best Battlefield game.

The combination of the stealth-focused campaign and many multiplayer modes establishes Battlefield Hardline as a worthwhile standalone entry in the popular FPS franchise. A few of those multiplayer modes shine more than others and the cops and robbers theme fails to save the story from its dull tendencies, but the rest of the game utilizes the new setting in some smart and meaningful ways.

Battlefield: Hardline tries very hard to be something fresh in a world of familiarity. It just doesn’t quite have the chops to pull it off, at least from a campaign perspective.

I have long been over Battlefield’s traditional military shooter roots, and since Hardline breaks from that formula, I enjoyed it far more than I have any other Battlefield title yet. If you are looking for something different and experimental, and you enjoy single-player more than multiplayer, then Battlefield: Hardline is a pretty good recommendation for you.

Story mode is very fun and immersive. Graphics and physics are very successful as well. However, the game puts nothing over the usual Battlefield experience. Battlefield Hardline lacks depth and fails to bring enough features one would expect from a standalone game.

With its Miami Vice inspiration, Battlefield Hardline takes a smooth shift of direction from the Swedish games. But this alternate game offers an improved solo and a still very effective multi.

Battlefield Hardline is a good shooter and its core is still enjoyable. The main issue with the game is the fact that Visceral Games hasn’t made sufficient efforts to get something fresh from the cops vs crooks formula.

Hardline might not reinvent the wheel the series rolls on, but it certainly makes it spin a whole lot smoother. Speeded up gameplay, an opened-up single-player, and a robust suite of new multiplayer modes lends itself to the best Battlefield to date—though that’s not saying much, a decade later.

Anyone trying out a Battlefield title for the first time will find a game that’s much more accessible than any of the other ones in the past, but much like the previous ones, if you’re getting in the helicopter, please practice in an empty lobby before crash landing with your whole team on-board.

Battlefield Hardline tries bravely to shake things up, but the results aren't exactly top notch.

I'd love to see Rescue and Heist establish a community of players, because they're great modes done well.

Superficially it might look like a reskin, but Battlefield Hardline is no cop out. [May 2015, p71]

A passable and unspectacular campaign is unlikely to win any new fans, but Hardline's fresh take on Battlefield multiplayer makes it worth a shot. [Issue#256, p.68]

Hardline both succeeds with flying colors, and fails miserably in various aspects of its game design but the good outweighs the bad with its sandbox style mission design, handful of addicting multiplayer modes, and rock solid Battlefield gunplay players know and love.

Against all the odds, it's the single player campaign that's proved to be Battlefield: Hardline's biggest selling point. Trying to play through as a 'good cop' by arresting baddies instead of filling them with lead is very rewarding. But the gunplay is as fun as ever if you want to play that way too.

The cops ‘n’ robbers theme often does more harm than good to the Battlefield formula, but this peculiar spin-off has just enough tricks of is own to be worth a collar.

It's a decent game that gets points for originality of concept, but how much value it has is down to how much you enjoyed previous entries in the franchise, and how much you'd like to see the Cop FPS genre become a thing.

Multiplayer is, of course, the main reason that you buy into a Battlefield game, and it's generally enjoyable, even if it doesn't do anything to revolutionise the genre. However, both Activision and EA, and every other FPS developer that aspires to become the top dog franchise, needs to learn that if they are going to persist in putting single player narratives into their games, then they need to do a far better job.

It wouldn't be a Battlefield game without a host of multiplayer scenarios, and Hardline is definitely no slouch in that department, even if the assortment of options lack a certain sweeping freshness that would have been greatly appreciated.

Don't even consider buying for the single player campaign, as it doesn't add anything new to the genre. On the other hand, the multiplayer modes can be tons of fun, especially the more relaxed ones. In the end, it's a partially successful experiment in giving Battlefield a more casual appeal.

While it doesn't feel as vital as Battlefields past, inventive new multiplayer modes and a fresh, if slightly unfocused campaign make Hardline the worthy TV spin-off to DICE’s big budget blockbusters.

Battlefield Hardline fails in rebranding DICE's series but its core is still enjoyable. And when it does the Battlefield, there’s still a lot of fun.

Battlefield’s jump to law enforcement and lawbreakers doesn’t rob the franchise of its essence but fails to bring enough heat to woo non-fans.

The single-player mode starts out promisingly, but bogs down into a rather weak stealth game whose action feels hit-and-miss. Multiplayer is where the game works best, especially on its smaller maps, which can deliver truly thrilling and intense action.

There's genuine long-term fun to be had in multiplayer modes, but it's not consistent. [June 2015, p.66]

Hardline is the archetypal spin-off, then; the victim of a franchise treading water until the next big advancement.

A laughably-shambolic campaign and multiplayer that is merely serviceable and too timid to step out of Battlefield 4's shadow.

There is still a great multiplayer shooter here, but it feels more like an expansion than a full sequel - if it wasn’t for the campaign, Hardline would be Battlefield 4’s version of Bad Company 2's Vietnam expansion - it even has the vehicle music. It just forgot to bring the personality.

Battlefield Hardline is hardly a disaster, but it feels like a franchise spinning its wheels with minor adjustments, rather than truly advancing forward.