Battlefield™ Hardline

I wanted to play Battlefield Hardline mainly for the story mode because I never experienced it before. The actual game is good, and after finally getting it running I’m enjoying the campaign a lot. The gameplay, graphics, and mechanics honestly feel ahead of their time. However, getting the game to actually launch was a nightmare. When you start the game through Steam, it opens the EA App, then sends you to a browser/Battlelog page. From there you have to figure out how to access the campaign. The whole process feels outdated and unnecessarily complicated. I almost gave up and refunded it, but Steam couldn’t help because I bought it around two months ago and didn’t have time to play it earlier. I was just stuck with a game I paid for that wouldn’t launch. The fix that worked for me: - Deleted Battlefield Hardline - Deleted the EA App - Reinstalled everything - Switched from Brave browser to Chrome - Allowed EA App and Chrome through Windows security/folder access permissions (Windows was blocking access without clearly explaining it) After doing that, the game finally launched. So my recommendation: the game itself is good, but be prepared for a painful setup process. If you really want to play the campaign, it can be worth it, but don’t expect a smooth experience after pressing “Play” on Steam.

I don't have any issues with the game itself, story and gameplay seems interesting enough, a fresh twist being a police officer. Gameplay mechanics and visuals are good. Ultimately refunded the game because just booting the game is a huge hassle, the most unintuitive process I've ever seen. You install the game on steam, then get to open it through the lovely EA launcher which sends you to, and I'm not even joking, a web page where you have to log in and finally, finally boot the game. Unless it crashes, when you have to redo the experience. How on earth this went through quality control, or who decided to give this idea a go.. It really boggles my mind. Maybe they're paying 9d chess and know something I don't. Don't buy it, just not worth dealing with EA's appalling design.

I really wanted to love this game. But I just can't. Where do I even begin, to be honest? Launcher: How about the fact that it's not even Steam to EA Origin Launcher app to play the game, but Steam to EA Origin Launcher, to a game-specific website??? Oh, and yes, an account is still needed. Why? I understand needing an EA account for multiplayer, but for the single-player campaign??? CS FPS Cap: Or how about how a lot of cutscenes are engine-locked to 30 FPS? On PC, this doesn't feel like being in a movie or TV show to me, it just feels choppy. CS Replay Skip: Also you can't skip the mission cutscenes for missions you've already completed. I enjoyed them the first time, but when I missed an objective and had to go back through, taking 5-10 minutes per level for unskippable cutscene reruns just wastes time. Poor Gunplay: Perhaps the biggest problem is that the gunplay/ballistic mechanics/balancing are simply TERRIBLE. (Note that I prefer PVE/story mode, so I can only speak to those.) Enemies often shrug-off a 7.62x51 (.308) round to the torso, or one or two 5.56 rounds to the head, and sometimes even a .308 round to the head too. When hits register, fights are often over very quickly, including if you the player get shot by a couple enemies at once. But so often enemies just feel like bullet-sponges unless you get perfect headshots, or spray and pray excessively. I could forgive that with most handguns, but with battle rifles? That's absurd. Also, weapon range is laughably low Weapon accuracy is poor. Weapon stats are not balanced around weapon type, caliber, barrel length, etc, and seem to have arbitrarily assigned values. Even the supposedly "meta" weapons in the game are just okay at best, and often not even that. In short, weapon mechanics are nothing like Battlefield 3 and 4, and are instead just plain bad. I've played Indie studio, beta-test, early access games made by tiny teams that had much better gunplay than this. Stealth: The stealth aspect of the story mode is interesting... to a point. But I feel it's overly relied upon and I personally found it tedious and annoying after awhile. YMMV on this aspect. It was more that it was overly time-consuming and not really rewarding for doing so. The phone scanner: Oh how I came to loathe that thing. I find that it blocks too much of your field of view. It doesn't tell you where you need to go in enough detail, and it sends the player on many wild-goose-chases across multiple floors for whatever clue you're after (No height/floor indicator, no map of what sites you have yet to search, etc.) It doesn't tell you what clues/areas you've missed, and it sometimes doesn't list an "x/y clues in your area found" list when there are in fact unfound clues in your area I think it was an interesting idea, but I don't think it was implemented well. At all. Due to that, I often found myself having to go back and reply missions, and even do internet searches on where seemingly impossible-to-find clues where hidden. I'm not asking for this feature to hold the player's hand, but rather that the player shouldn't have to hold the scanner's hand to do basic game tasks. It adds time-spent and complexity, but it doesn't really feel rewarding. I dreaded using the thing, save on missions that didn't have combat. I think if there had been combat missions and then detective-only ones, or maybe a "must resolve current room's case to progress mission" feature, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. As it was, it just felt like something else to manage, with me babysitting a poorly done UI/mechanic, rather than actually solving cases or adding interesting gameplay. Which is a shame, because I liked the idea of investigating things and gathering evidence. But this just felt like a checklist and constant second layer of UI to manage while being shot at. What the game is: The game is, in my opinion, a terrible FPS game. But I didn't find it to be a satisfying detective/investigator game, or stealth game either. Yet it tries to be all three. In my opinion, it succeeds at none of them, which is a shame, because I really would have liked a game that did all, or at least the combat and detective-work aspects, well. Single-Player Story Plot: Finally, let's talk about the story. I will try and avoid any major spoilers, but I will briefly go over how I felt about it, ending included (without details.) Spoiler-free version? I didn't care for the story. If you want to go in totally plot-blind, then probably avoid the following, though. I was really hoping that this game's premise, and what I heard about it online, meant it might offer a truly satisfying, if not very deep, detective story. For a lot of it, and it's honestly quite short, (16 hours play-time as of review, but that was with repeating about 1/3 of the missions from missed clues, and multiple hours of staying logged into the menu while I needed to AFK, so realistically more like 6-7 hours, with most of that being stealth, fighting, and trying to figure out which floor clues 3 meters away were on,) it feels like a pretty standard FPS story. Not deep, not great, but not bad. Predictable plot and characters, sure. Not much character depth or growth, either. But okay. And that would have been enough to be "fun but not great" if it had managed to give a half-decent ending. But then the final act happens. It is at that point that it decides to go completely out of character, avoid any kind of arcs/conclusions, leave a ton of questions about the characters and their motivations, and leave basically all of the plot points as cliffhangers. Supposedly the developers planned to address these in a series of sequels, but these were canceled. Frankly, with how shallow and unsatisfying the plot was in this first game, and with how awful the FPS mechanics/balancing were, I can see why said sequels were cancelled. Final thoughts: At least it runs fine, when not cutscene capped to 30 FPS, on what is now mid-ish end hardware in 2026? At least the graphics are fine for a 2015 game? (Not good, but not bad. It's not photorealistic, but it was good enough that I could get into the world.) At least it was only $2.13 USD on sale? I don't play PVP, so I don't know if that aspect is still running, but I'd be surprised if many people bothered playing a 2015 FPS game with poor mechanics in 2026. There are much better options out there. I can't help but feel that I wasted my time on this more-so than money. If the ending had been even just okay, I'd probably say "well it gave me $2-worth of fun." But as it is? "Well that's a couple days of gaming I won't get the time back on." I would not suggest getting it even at the sale price of $1.99. (And if that was the standard price, I probably wouldn't even have left a review. But it isn't, so I did.) PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS at the regular price of $40. In 2026, this would be seriously overpriced at even $20. But $40 is just... awful for what this game is.

Just the story alone makes this a Battlefield game worth playing.

Battlefield Hardline is my favorite Battlefield, great maps design, a wide variety of well known weapons, and just the perfect balance of pace, I had to get it here because the servers got shutdown on console, even tho there's like maybe one server alive at a time, I am still having so much fun, it didn't get the love it truly deserved.

It’s not that bad a game; I quite enjoyed it. I know this game isn't what Battlefield fans wanted it to be. They thought making a '[b]Cops vs Criminals[/b]' type of game would make the franchise more interesting but it actually made it worse. They could have made this a separate series instead. This game certainly has some plot holes, flaws, and weak elements in some of its missions and story arcs. Consequently, the game received a massive amount of hatred, which ultimately caused the studio to shut down (I am really sorry for Visceral Games). I am not actually a regular Battlefield player, but I have certainly played many games from Electronic Arts and I am still playing their games. I bought this game specifically to observe the final title from Visceral Games; to understand why they were shut down, and why this particular game received so much hate from fans, amongst other reasons. I am expressing my full review with a few spoilers included, as this will also help newcomers. So, the [b]pro[/b]s: [list] [*]This game is more oriented towards a 'takedown' and 'tactical' style of gameplay. You have to arrest enemies rather than kill them, because you are playing as a police officer. There are ways to play the game without being detected and to feel like a spy. [*]Places, atmosphere, dialogues, and individual level scenarios are awesome. All those soundtracks are excellent. Some of the tracks are even from some music bands too. [*]I did not encounter any bugs or glitches at all. [*]Multiplayer mode is truly amazing. It isn't overly grindy, and it is highly entertaining too. Just like old Battlefield games, it features four factions, experience earning, and weapon part unlocking. All of the character voices and groans are hilarious and entertaining as well. [*]This game is well-optimised and runs smoothly even on low-specification hardware. You just have to lower the resolution and turn the graphics settings down to medium or low, and that's all. [*]Narrative and dialogues have been implemented correctly. You must complete most of the mission silently and obtain arrest warrants, including finding evidence and case files. [*]Weapons and gadgets sound realistic and their holding and reloading animations look great. There are even secret weapons and reload animations for some weapons that you can find in multiplayer. [/list] The [b]cons[/b]: [list] [*]The story starts off well, but it gets progressively worse towards the end. There are a total of 10 episodes, excluding the Prologue. The first five episodes are great and truly make you feel like you are doing police work. However, the story suddenly takes a completely different turn. Nick (the protagonist) essentially becomes a rogue agent and wants to kill everyone. You can still arrest people by shouting '[b]FREEZE[/b]', but it doesn't actually make any sense since you are no longer a cop. There are many plot holes that you will notice too. Enemies just stand guard all the time without even wearing proper tactical gear. All those armed men can easily be arrested simply by pressing '[b]G[/b]' when they don't know your location (up to three at a time). Once you're caught then everyone knows your location. Even Dawes's (the antagonist) men are actually private guards or corrupt police officers, and you have to kill them in Episode 9. You get betrayed by Khai (a woman) who was your partner in earlier four episodes. But Nick was rescued from the prison van by Tyson (her boyfriend) in Episode 5 so that he can help to eliminate/cease Dawes. So, by the end, Nick the cop has turned into a criminal. The ending is a massive cliffhanger that leaves Nick alone in a secret bunker on an island (and at times, Dawes even acted as if he is Nick's real father. He asked about Nick's mother twice). Nick had to kill his old partner, Stoddard. Because he was betrayed by Dawes, Khai and Stoddard, and after teaming up with Khai he began killing everyone. Plus, in Episode 8, you had to kill Dune's dad. He showed up all by himself, operating a tank. Dune (a random girl) is the girlfriend of Boomer (one of the main characters), and she went against her own father to save Nick and Boomer. Really, what kind of plot twist is that? You started killing from Episode 6. [*]Enemy AI is very awkward. All those locations are very empty, and there are barely any people (except targets) to see. All the model and face designs looked familiar, and your partner can get through them all the time. [*]There are various weapons and gadgets available to try but most of them are completely useless in the story campaign. I only needed to use AKM and a good silenced handgun, along with an armoured vest and a gas mask. [*]How can a police officer get access to heavy military weapons to do raids and to go in various places? The game fails to show a valid justification or logical references for this 'cops vs criminals' setup. [*]There is an achievement that you can no longer unlock because the COMPETITIVE multiplayer mode has been completely shut down. [/list] the game runs in an online only mode to synchronise your activity through the story, as described in description. You have to use a native web browser to launch the game. There is a way you can play it completely offline but I am not sure if it unlocks achievements and Battlepacks on the website. Some negative reviews are solely because it must be launched from your browser. So, these are the things you need to know before trying out Battlefield: Hardline. Again, this is a standalone campaign with zero connection to the main Battlefield franchise storyline. I bought this to experience the final game made by Visceral. They really left a lot of Easter eggs and references behind for us Dead Space fans in their final project, and I was able to catch all of them (Some of them are even from other EA titles). Visceral was the main developer responsible for the story and level design, while DICE contributed a bit as well, mostly focusing on the multiplayer. Uprise handled the Battlelog maintenance, and EA held the reins over everything. Visceral failed to achieve commercial success with both Dead Space 3 and Battlefield: Hardline, which is why the studios was closed down on 17th October 2017. This (BF:H) game's multiplayer features will become unavailable on 22nd June 2026 for PlayStation and Xbox consoles too. PC is now the only place left to play the multiplayer, and the highest player activity can be seen between [u]1 PM[/u] and [u]10 PM[/u] UTC. I am still playing the multiplayer (with around 50 people) on the AE51 servers (sometimes in [FREE]) and I am thoroughly enjoying playing with the remaining BF:H fanbase. If you are willing to try out this game, I recommend buying it only when it is at an 80% to 95% discount. You don't have to buy the Shortcut Pack.

I cannot even run the game. When I press Play button, it opens Battlelog website, then it stucks there forever. It just asks me to open EA App. But it always gets launched after I try to run the game. I played the game like 2 months ago without a problem on a server to test. But then deleted. Now I wanted to give a chance to play the campaign, but I encountered this ♥♥♥♥ problem. Imagine a game needs you to open their website to play the campaign :D. Thank you EA, once again

Battlefield Hardline, remains one of the most polarizing entries in the storied Battlefield franchise by shifting the focus from large scale military warfare to a cops vs criminals theme. Unlike many entries in the series, Hardline features a campaign structured like a police procedural TV show. It introduced non-lethal takedowns, stealth mechanics, and a detective themed investigation system that felt surprisingly fresh for the franchise. While the game succeeds in offering a faster, more arcade like experience, it often struggles to reconcile its identity with the core pillars that fans like us expect from a Battlefield title. So, if you are looking for an infantry focused, high octane cops and robbers shooter, it’s a blast. However, if you are looking for the massive, destructive military sandboxes that define the franchise, Hardline will likely leave you feeling underwhelmed.

Battlefield Hardline is probably one of the most underrated online shooters ever made. It became a victim of EA's marketing decisions. If it had been released as a standalone cops vs criminals shooter instead of carrying the Battlefield name, I genuinely believe it would have attracted a much larger audience. The single player campaign is still enjoyable today. It's not a masterpiece, but it tells an entertaining story that's worth playing at least once. As for the multiplayer, things are a bit more complicated. Even now, the game can still be fun, but getting into a match is oddly cumbersome. You usually need Steam, the EA App, and Battlelog running at the same time just to play. On top of that, there are only a handful of active servers left typically two or three at any given time. If you're a new player, the setup process and the low server population will probably make the experience frustrating. It's hard to recommend buying the game just for multiplayer unless you know what you're getting into. However, if you're a returning player looking for nostalgia, Hardline is still a blast. Game modes like Blood Money and Heist are still incredibly fun and offer a unique experience that you won't find in most modern shooters. The cops-and-robbers theme, fast-paced gameplay, and memorable multiplayer design help the game stand out from the rest of the Battlefield series. Despite its flaws and its small community today, I still have a great time whenever I jump back in. Recommended for veterans and nostalgic fans, but difficult to recommend for newcomers.

[h1] Hardline - Single player campaign review [/h1] [i]This review contains spoilers [/i] [i]This game requires a 3rd party account [/i] [i]This game requires a 3rd party launcher [/i] [b]TL;dr:[/b] This single-player campaign receives a lot of criticism for a good reason. The story is weak, the gameplay is poor and the actors aren't given a proper script to act on. Avoid this if you are looking for a good single player FPS. [b]Not recommended.[/b] [table] [tr] [td]Platforms played on[/td] [td]Windows desktop[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Pros[/td] [td]The premise for the story is interesting. The actors do quite well with the limited script they have been given. Some of the set-pieces are built well. The "Previously on:" and "Next time on:" mechanics are really nice, and I would wish they would get used more often.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Cons[/td] [td]Story is really low quality. The gameplay is weak. Changing your guns only affects your rate of fire, nothing else. Invisible walls will block your bullets randomly.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Things to know?[/td] [td]This game requires EA App. This game uses the old Battlelog webpage, so launching the game to either single-player or multiplayer requires using a browser. This game uses PunkBuster anti-cheat.[/td] [/tr] [/table] [hr][/hr] [h2]Details[/h2] [b]DLC:[/b] This game comes with all previously released DLC. There is a separate multiplayer unlock DLC that can be purchased [b]Achievements:[/b] This game has achievements for both single and multiplayer segments. If the servers go offline, you cannot finish the multiplayer achievements. Some of the single player challenges are tied to finishing entire story mode on certain difficulty. Getting all these difficulty-related achievements requires at least 2 playthroughs. [hr][/hr] [h2]Overview of the Story and Gameplay[/h2] This review is only for the single player campaign of the game. Battlefield Hardline tried something new. It didn't go for the typical Battlefield formula of armies fighting against each other, instead it opted for a police versus criminals style of action in urban landscapes. As is the case with each Battlefield game, this too came with a singleplayer campaign to showcase different locations and to tell, usually a very mediocre, story. In this installment you take the role of a Miami PD detective chasing after narcos with your partner when you suddenly find out about a dirty cop in your department and start to gather evidence for Internal Affairs division, which never appears, only to get framed and sent to prison. During this time your framers suddenly fight with each other, decide to break you out for reasons that are never told. Then you fight (and arrest??) other criminals on your road to vengeance which takes you to a... you know what, it makes even less sense when I'm trying to write it out. The game is played on first-person and your job is to mainly shoot bad guys. Hardline mixes up the formula however by having you arrest bad guys and rewarding you experience points for taking bad guys down stealthily or arresting them. To encourage players to actually do this more, your weapons are peashooters and the only difference between guns is pretty much the rate of fire, whereas your enemies do tend to get the more hard hitting weapons. Want to use sniper rifle? Well too bad, you may have to hit an enemy 5-6 times before he dies. Want to use suppressor? Miss a shot and everyone knows instantly where you are? Want to stealthily use your taser to take down enemy non-lethally? Prepare to get blocked by invisible walls. This pretty much means that most of the time you will be going for the crouch and sneak behind every enemy to take them down approach and many enemy encounters are like taking down enemy camps in Far Cry 3 in stealth mode. To mix the gameplay up a bit, you also have a magic scanner that can tag your enemies and read case evidence. These evidences are mostly optional, but they do unlock "more powerful" guns for your road to revenge. There are few "search through this place" kind of levels and driving levels and get to even drive a tank for total 3 minutes. There is also the mandatory sneak through this long level without getting spotted at all -level. [hr][/hr] [h2]The Tech[/h2] Battlefield Hardline is a game from 2015. It looks good, has plenty of PC features, working surround sound and the presentation still holds up. Bafflingly all the cutscenes, even those where player has control, are locked to 30 fps. Which means that cutscene parts are quite jarring when the FPS suddenly jumps from 30 to 144 fps for example. The game supports ultra-wide resolutions in cutscenes and in gameplay. The game launches via Battlelog webpage and requires EA client to be installed. [hr][/hr] [h2]My opinions[/h2] For 3 euros, this didn't seem like such a bad deal. I was warned that I'd be met with a very poor campaign, and that proved to be right. I was curious to see, how Battlefield-formula would work when applied to a narcotics/police game. Let's be honest, it didn't work well for the campaign mode. What I got was a very nonsensical story padded with poor gun-play and even poorer finish. Many encounters were tedious just because I tried to use a sniper rifle from 10 meters, aimed for head, held my breath aaand missed or didn't cause enough damage, turning whole camps of enemies in my position instantly. The actors do a nice job, but the script is so nonsensical that many motives and story beats become fuddled. It took me 6 hours to finish the story, with all collectibles and almost all achievements (barring difficulty ones and one stealth one). It's a pretty short campaign and doesn't last too long. [hr][/hr] I cannot recommend this game for single player mode at all. My recommendation is [b]not recommended[/b]. My score for the game is 4/10. [hr][/hr]