Due to sad events in the real world, Electronic Arts has not given permission to continue the Battlefield title…
The 2015 Battlefield spin-off from Visceral Games and Electronic Arts, Battlefield Hardline, proved to be quite a divisive game. At the same time, it is a fact that he still has a reasonably significant fan base. If you belong to the latter, then unfortunately I have sad news for you: you will never see the continuation of the game.
In a recent interview with the head of multiplayer design for Battlefield Hardline, Thaddeus Sasser, VideoGamer’s Lewis White learned that the chances of a sequel are close to zero.
“I think, you know, maybe, maybe, there is a world where that game could exist…” – explained Sasser, “but, at the time, the political climate—if you remember there’s [the] Ferguson [shooting] and all that other bad stuff going on. It was just… too much. There was no way EA was going to do that…”
“I would have liked to strip the Battlefield name off the front” – he continued – “because that’s, I think, the thing that p**sed so many people off.”
The murder in Ferguson, and later George Floyd and other similar cases, really led to a certain degree of reevaluation of police violence in the USA. And this significantly reduced the potential success of a game like Hardline. But the confirmation that Battlefield Hardline won’t be getting a sequel has pissed off quite a few fans. Because while the reception of the game was quite negative before its release, nowadays many people have a rather positive opinion about the title.
In the Reddit thread detailing the news on r/Battlefield, several people voiced their disappointment at the announcement.
“Not surprising honestly Cuz battlefield was never really made for cops and robbers…” – said user TEHYJ2006, “But still some things in bf hardline were amazing”
“God I loved this game so much, its so sad that there are basically no more active servers on PC. The map design was something else!” replied Marinesnake8.
AzureRathalos97 made a similar statement: “They had some innovative and hilarious ideas. It’s a shame such a large sect of the community didn’t treat it as the spinoff it was like they did Bad Company.”
Unfortunately, even if a sequel to Battlefield Hardline were to be released today, I doubt that it would be as successful as it was back then – since the Visceral Games studio that developed the original game was closed by EA in 2017.
Source: VideoGamer, Reddit
