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Announced this week at E3, the latest incarnation of the Battlefield series of video games (typically set in sandy environments and pitting heavily armed military units against each other) will instead feature heavily armed police and other law enforcement agencies against a fictitious and unbelievably well-armed criminal organization. And I do mean unbelievable. Titled “Battlefield Hardline,” the game is in a closed beta right now with pre-orders available for $70.

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107 COMMENTS

  1. EA: We won’t pay royalties to gun manufacturers for making weapons of war, but we will use their designs to glorify weapons of war.

    • Until the police finally get the freakin’ wax out of their ears and learn that we’re all on the same side, this battle might as well represent a conflict with patriotic citizens, because sooner or later, if the globalists continue to have their way, we will ALL be criminals ……… and with respect to the UN mercenary goons, even the police will be on their hit list.

      Many police are wondering where the lines are being drawn between who is good or bad, and many of them are now questioning what they’ve gotten themselves into. LIke many of the soldiers returning from the Middle East knowing that we shouldn’t be over there and falling into depression and suicide, sooner later the police will be in that same pit. Then, they’ll be of no use to the globalists and become expendable fodder like the rest of us.

    • Pretty sure he’s being sarcastic since Grand Theft Auto has been out since 1997 and it completely glorifies killing police. The games have only gotten better at stories about killing the police.

    • I doubt it, no more than anyone complains that the CoD series or the other Battlefield games “glorify” killing US, British or other Soldiers. When a game gives the option to play either side of a conflict people don’t seem to get particularly worked up.

  4. I got into the beta! The game is pretty freakin’ sweet! My question is, though, why are you ragging on the topic of this game? This game is exactly the situation in which militarized police are needed. The criminals even get full auto weapons. It is reskinned US v China. It is the place where the topic needs not be criticized. Would you prefer playing as the cops with .38s(they are in the game) while the criminals get the AKM? It wouldn’the make for a fun game. This is not the place to criticize the topic.

    • No. No. No. Just NO. If criminals became this ridiculously well armed and trained it would no longer constitute as a police matter, and become a military one.

        • If the criminals are this heavily armed and this rampant, I would wager a state of martial law wouldn’t be far around the corner.

        • An organized crime syndicate strong enough to wage a pitched battle would no longer be considered just “criminal gang”. Think cartel level in Mexico. It would be considered an insurrection, and the military could be used.

        • Actually, the Posse Comatatus (Spelling ?) Act after the Civil War limits military enforcement of civil law…. The States refused to ratify the Constitution until a Bill of Rights was included. The Constitution does not address the issue, except for the Bill of Rights’ recognition of an individual’s natural rights.

        • Executive Orders and Emergency Powers Doug, you can thank 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and general panic for the above as well as for the Patriot Act which while scaled back still supersedes Posse Commitatus. The DHS in conjunction with Federal LEOs most likely the FBI and BATFE would be the real life counter-parts for “Police” depicted in this game.

          And also the Government works around military personnel performing law enforcement activities on US soil on a daily basis. EOD techs in particular get called in by Federal LEOs on a weekly basis, most often the secret service. They have no jurisdiction, see this humorous article wherein the source admits to and details this:

          http://www.cracked.com/article_21365_5-things-i-learned-defusing-bombs-movies-wont-show-you.html

    • I think you give a lot more credit to EA than is deserved… they’re just scurrying around trying to find any idea for a plot, no matter how ridiculous, that they haven’t done five times already.

    • In Grand Theft Auto 5, while robbing a convenience store, there’s a chance an armed pedestrian will shoot at you. I’ve only seen it once, but it was fun to watch.

      • in the fictitious version of California (san andreas) there was a massive loosening of the states gun laws the conservative candidate on the in game radio advertises this

      • It’s happened to me. Sometimes I’ve been shot at just for carrying a gun openly. Get a little too close to someone who’s a little twitchy and before you know it you’re on the ground looking at that red “WASTED”…

        And yes, I plan on re-buying the game when it launches on Playstation 4.

  9. What are you worried about? Violent video games don’t provoke mentally-ill people to do bad things.

    Now, if there was a video game of cops doing Dance Dance Revolution, well that would be a problem.

  10. Not a lot of POTG are gamers so I’ll break it down.

    Everybody hates EA. They ruin IPs, overhype games, put out the same crap year after year, buy up smaller developers and then gut them, and created “always require online connection” for single player games.

    In essences, this game will be the same old crap sold for a high price so they can pay for their bloated hype machine marketing. Released product will be buggy and/or unfinished.

    • Agreed completely, I assume this will probably compete with BF4 in terms of numbers sold so the launch will probably be a shit sandwich tsunami as well.

      • I am terrified to find out on Tuesday what EA has done with my sport of choice in the form of UFC. I already know they put freaking Bruce Lee in as a playable character and will certainly carry through on their “pay-to-win” micro transaction policy but if the game play and create-a-fighter turn out to be terrible I’ll be the guy being mocked on the 5 O’clock news as I weep openly while I return my shiny new game to Wal Mart lol.

    • $70!? Really? $70! I am in the closed beta and am really unimpressed, it feels like this whole game could be an expansion pack to Battlefield 4, which EA ruined by launching before the game was even done, and they want $10 more than the average $60. This should be a $15-$30 download game like Battlefield 1943, not a full retail game. EA didn’t even have anything to show at E3 they just showed a bunch of the developers they control talking about their games because they had nothing to actually show. It makes sense that EA showed all their games so far away from completion as that is how they usually release them.

    • Though in this case the hate for EA is clouding the real problem: DICE are terrible, incompetent developers. Only so much blame can be transferred to the publisher.

    • EA hasn’t made a good game since urban strike on the genesis. They’re like a damn fossil that screams IM STILL IMPORTANT!! They really just need to vanish. Them and their mediocre sports game monopoly.

      • I wouldn’t go that far. Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge, and Star Wars Battlefront (just to name a few) are good games.

        The problem is once they get the scent of cash, they run IPs into the ground.

        Like another poster said, they are the Freedom Group of the gaming industry.

  11. At least it’s a change from the constant Russian/ Chinese bad guys. I remember when when the first Medal of Honorsrt during the opening months if the Afghanistan Conflict people threw hissy fits because the bad guys in the multiplayer where the Taliban, so much noise was made the producer changed it to OP- For instead

    • I remember that controversy well. EA hired U.S. Army personnel as technical advisers for the game. Either shortly before or after launch they caught wind that the Taliban were a multiplayer team and subsequently flipped a sh!t. I had no idea EA changed anything. I understand why they got upset given the historical proximity and all, but it still blows my mind that the thought never crossed anyone’s mind while working so close with the devs.

    • Ironically the recent BF3 (Russia and US clashing in Black Sea region) now has somewhat of an eerie veneer of possibility.

    • Didn’t that Medal of Honor 2010 game actually end up portraying not only Afghanistan but Taliban as well? I seem to remember the Army banning it from sale at the PX for that while I was still in.

  12. This game is a horrible concept! First it will make it seem like fun to shoot at cops, second it will normalize the presence of way too tacticooled out police forces. I never liked the BF series because of its gameplay, now I hate it because of this game.

    • Don’t forget that the first Battlefield glorified nazism since you could play as the axis and even win the campaign playing as the axis!

      • There wasn’t a campaign mode in Battlefield 1942. You can play as axis powers, but the game was only multiplayer. I mean someone has to be the badguys wielding stg 44s.

  13. Payday has already done this in multiple titles, but I think it looks like a fun ass game. However, as bad as EA was about BF4 pre-orders etc I dont know if I really want to give them any more money at this time.

    Still looks great, I wouldnt mind working on the game but Id have to move to CA 😡

  14. Which Stormtrooper in the game is Dom Raso and which is his meathead SWAT friend Jerry? Raso likes to “crush everything” so after they Mozambique the robbers and a few innocent bystanders, I hope there’s a way to power-up by shredding the Constitution.

  15. Thinking that video games have any kind effect on crazed gunmen, is like thinking that owning a gun makes you a psycho-killer.

    The police in the beta I have played are no more armed than any large city police force. Rifles (M16, AKM, G36C), submachine guns (UZI, etc.) shotguns (double barreled, 870) and handguns (.38 snubs, semi-autos, etc.). Same thing for the criminals. Everything found in the game can be obtained by criminals easily. Especially in a town like LA with plenty of cartel connections.

  16. Yep, and Duke Nukem endorses the impregnation of strippers by space aliens, Super Mario World promotes the exploitation of friendly dinosaurs for slave labor, and Final Fight glorifies eating whole barbecued lamb shank out of garbage cans.

    Come on, guys, take a deep breath. There are plenty of reasons to balk at Generic Contemporary-Themed First Person Shooter #24,872, but let’s not immediately assume it’s some sinister conspiracy to endorse police militarization. A little discretion goes a long way when it comes to picking our battles.

        • True, but it is new for DICE. It is better they try something new (for themselves)than sticking to the same thing, just look at CoD. Also, I don’t think that Payday has car/boat/chopper chases.

      • If they could have done it right it might have been interesting. The character art I saw seemed to paint the True Patriots as sympathetic villains, showing the leader standing with his arm around his young son. The dev said something along the lines of the Patriots being somewhat reminiscent of the Tea Party, but their M.O. was attacking wealthy businessmen because they wanted economic equality, which is more Occupy-ish.

      • I was actually really disapointed with the cancelation of Patriots. I think it had a really great mechanic and idea going for it. To quote Penny Arcade, “I loved the direction of Patriots, and I’m sad to see it go – it wanted to talk about the thick, grey mass of ambiguity when you make moral decisions at scale.”

        Instead, they took the easy way out and turned it into faceless badguys getting killed by faceless goodguys in mass multiplayer. Le Sigh. Still, The Division looks pretty good.

  18. Nick, brother, whatsamatter? Did you run out of SMGs to review?
    And you TTAG gamers, anybody else play Wolfenstein? Frikkin loved it.

    • the latest release or the one before it? I’ve been dyin to hear bout the new one… I’m wonderin if it’s worth flippin Skyrim, Ghost Recon FS, Max Payne 3, that crappy reboot of NFS Most Wanted, & GTA V for.

  19. Flat had released prisoners as police about 25yrs ago. They were gangs. If it gets that bad I will only need one cartridge for me.

  20. How many achievements will you get for:

    (1) Shooting yourself in foot/leg?
    (2) Shooting your peers [on accident]?
    (3) Putting down any dog in the game? [/snark]

    • The thing that strikes me as important to gameplay is the part of the trailer where one of the cops declares “you’re under arrest” this gives me a small twinge of hope. When playing as the police are you going to be (rightfully) castigated or penalized for just straight up murdering the “Op-For” as opposed to actually arresting them?

  22. >>TTAG and the vast majority of its reader base hates video games

    Duly noted.

    I for one find it interesting. I don’t remember these comments when the payday 2 game review was up here…..

    Lighten up y’all, it’s just a mindless video game. Anyone going to comment on the first amendment violations in any of the cop dramas on TV? No? Ok.

  23. What I want to know is why DICE haven’t resurrected their original cash cow, Battlefield 1942, and given it a complete overhaul with Frostbite 3.0 yet. The Kursk and Omaha Beach maps with that level of destructibility and sound quality would be epic. I guess EA really does have them by the balls.

    • While i like your idea, I also like the new Battlefield. Simply because they tried something new, instead of following a recipe like CoD they actually tried something new.

    • I agree. Time to go back to making WW2 games with the latest generation of tech!

      Or a new Battlefield 2142. Though TITANFALL is pretty much that.

      • Pretty much what I thought, accept every time I play Titanfall, I keep wishing for bigger maps, more players and other vehicles. Basically, I keep wishing for Battlefield 2143.

  24. The whole draw of the Battlefield series is the fun of parachuting into the Caucasus Mountains to battle Russian special forces or landing on the beach during an amphibious invasion of China. The epic grudge match between world powers was so intense. I don’t see the same appeal in riding in a SWAT van to intercept some criminals, no matter how well armed they may be.

  26. You guys are getting your panties in a twist (or is it knickers?). If you have seen what many organized criminals have access to you would understand.

    Also, please stop trying to put politics into everything. “Hey, there is this videogame where you play an heavily actionized version of cops and robbers. You know what that means? They want this crap to happen in reality!”. If you really think along the lines of that, shouldn’t you worry about games like Fallout (global nuclear war) or Manhunt (you play a killer) or Dead Space (zombie aliens that make people mutilate themselves)?

    You do know that most people play videogames for fun? Especially stuff like Battlefield or Payday which is cooperative in nature.

    • I forgot surviving in a nuclear wasteland, escaping a sadistic corporation’s amusement park full of murderous psychos, and zombie aliens from outer space are all contemporary real-life issues.

      • Never know, people could get so used to the idea of surviving in a nuclear wasteland by playing Fallout that they wouldn’t protest a nuclear war enough to prevent it.

        • Well, the last video game I played was “Pong,” and I never turned against beer. So we’re safe!

  27. what the hell does this have to do with guns? and if you think any criminal organisation us unbelievably well armed or organized then i suggest you research the mexican drug cartels and thier practical ownership of certian municipalitys, even here in the US, chicago being the worst.

  29. “Cops and Robbers”, an old old childhood game, gets a digital twist and caters to adults. Not really sure what the complaints are about, it’s not glorifying anything: you can play as police OR criminals, just like in Counter-strike you play as terrorists or counter-terrorists, or WWII games where you play as Allies or Nazis. Kids played “cops and robbers” all the time when I was a kid, and that wasn’t too many decades ago or has the Liberal nanny state deluded everyone into forgetting that?

  30. I really don’t see a problem here. It’s a modern spin on cops and robbers.

    I didn’t realize TTAG was devolving to TTAWMPASB.(the truth about why militarized police are so bad)

    • militarized police forces are one of the main fears the founding fathers sought to eliminate with the 2nd amendment reporting on it is VERY relevant to gun rights

      • Indeed they are but given the context of the game, insanely violent criminals using fully automatic weapons and grenade launchers is well within the purview of heavily armed SWAT teams engaging them with military tactics and weaponry. I doubt the cop side of the game is doing a no-knock raid at an on-campus house cause someone phoned in a tip about drugs and guns. This game neither glorifies police militarization nor criminal behaviour: it’s a video game designed to entertain with a lot of action.

  32. I’m surprised you weren’t angry at PAYDAY 2 when they released the Election Day event. The players were hired by a Republican to swing the votes so an easier political opponent would be running against him. The old opponent was also pro CCW. Then again, the same Republican had the players frame a Democrat who did an arms deal.

    This Battlefield game is just another version of Counter Strike. At least the justification in Counter Strike for the weapons is that you are a Counter Terrorist task force.

  33. This game looks like a lot of fun. A whole lot of awesome for a video game (at least if you like 1st person shooters… I don’t have the reflexes for them, so I’ll watch other people play on youtube or something).

    That said, it also annoys the hell out of me. People are very quick to insist that violent movies and video games are either “directly responsible for” or “completely irrelevant to” real life violence. Like any other subject in the American political spectrum, it seems the only acceptable opinion must be of one extreme or the other. The more a person observes an act, real or simulated, the more effectively they can relate to that act… to empathize with the one performing that act. The more we use violence as entertainment, and the more extreme that violence is, the more accepting we will be of such acts in the real world. I’m not saying that just playing a ton of Call of Duty is going to make you go out and gun people down… that’s BS, there’s a gate of choice and personal accountability you have to go through (metaphorically) before that happens. But you’re less likely to be shocked, impressed, or otherwise removed from your comfort zone when you hear about such an incident or see it on the news. That is the beginning of acceptance and tolerance for these incidents. Violence in entertainment media does not cause violence in real life, but the perceived acceptance of violence is a contributing factor to the choice to use violence as a solution to real life issues where it need not be the only choice. The same criticism of entertainment media can be held as a contributing factor to cops exceeding what’s reasonable in an effort to be “the hero” and (especially with the game shown) for the public to be more accepting of a civilian police force being armed and acting like soldiers in a warzone.

    This won’t convert “good cops” that might exist into heartless shock troops (though it might reinfoce the self-righteousness of those who already are), this won’t cause the LAPD to mount miniguns on their cruisers. It will be one more drop in the rainstorm that is eroding our standards of what is and is not acceptable in our society… and because it’s not solely responsible, it will be accepted.

  34. to me it just looks like they updated & sensationalized the events from the roaring twenties…. you know when the cops found themselves seriously out gunned, driving the slower cars, & seriously out matched tactically and technologically (at times). I mean yall complainin over this is like moaning over Robocop, Demolition Man, Judge Dredd, Cobra (I think that’s the name not sure… Sylvester Stallone drives that tricked out lead sled), & any other number of movies based on the same basic idea.

  36. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!! This is exactly what they want to happen. I heard the next game you get to round up innocent civilians and put them in reeducation camps!!! SHEEPLE are allowing this to happen!!!

  39. Looks like it could be fun. Nick, come on man, it’s a game. I think you’re reading too far into it. TTAG should stick to things it is moderately good it; reviewing/previewing games is not one of them.

  40. 59.99, 69.99 is for the deluxe edition. Source- I work for gamestop. Also if you order you get a police badge looking money clip. Happy shooting.

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