Visceral Games managed to get over 5 million players in the Battlefield Hardline open beta. Now, Visceral has outlined 15 changes they will be making to the game thanks to fan feedback. We’ll summarize them in brief below.
Wow, we've passed 5 MILLION players in the #BFHardline beta! So proud of our team. Glad you're having fun and keep that feedback coming.
— Steve Papoutsis (@leveluptime) February 8, 2015
The mechanic class received a simple rename to Gadget Master class, and now gets SMGs and Sat Phone for their perks.
The game’s customization and HUD screens have been cleaned up, to make them easier to understand.
There will be more interactions in terms of doors to open, radios to turn on, etc. On the other hand, the over-the-top explosions have been reduced. They look great, but may have distracted from competitive play.
Players sped up movement 10 %, and if they had pistols, they sped up 10 % more. Vehicles are faster too, thanks to the handbrake enabling drifting, as well as tuning options.
Devs balanced out aspects of the durability of vehicles. They were too easily destroyed in the beta, so their survivability has been increased. At the same time, heavily armored vehicles were given clear and targetable weak spots, in the rear.
Situational awareness is important in Hardline. To make this more pronounced, audio cues, such as louder footsteps, radio audio, etc, have been ramped up. Visual feedback has been improved as well, so you can more easily track your next checkpoint.
Speaking of situational awareness, the camera has been adjusted, so that while you are being suppressed, you won’t receive that bouncing effect. Situational awareness will be affected but not your aimpoint. Camera shaking has been generally reduced.
Survivalist has received nerfs. You can now only be revived from explosions and road skills, apparently to counter more frustrating deaths from other circumstances.
Visceral will definitely be making rounds longer than the beta. The devs explained they deliberately made rounds short in beta to make feedback easier to acquire.
Finally, and perhaps most controversially, they adjusted interrogation. Interrogation will now be less powerful, but more useful in the game.
EA and Visceral still will not acknowledge the social issues that haunt the game and its themes, but it seems fans are willing to give that a pass. How do you feel about it? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
Battlefield Hardline will be released on March 17 for Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
