The past two Battlefield games have gotten off on the wrong foot with gamers, offering “beta tests” that were so close to launch that players couldn’t understand how they were meaningful. In an effort to reshape perception (and improve the experience), Visceral and EA offered a much earlier public test for Battlefield Hardline.
As a result, Visceral has shared 10 key learnings that have already impacted the way the game will work on day one. Some are fairly minor, like a stair-climbing bug on one of the maps. Others, like a change to how your game reacts while suppressed by enemy fire, will have impact across the entire experience.
Movement speed has been increased by 10 percent, and there’s an additional 10 percent bonus while running with a pistol instead of a larger weapon. The survivalist gadget, which polarized the community, is getting nerfed and will revive players at one health and auto-inject after five seconds.
Two elements on the High Tension map, the aforementioned stairs bug has been fixed and an intense camera shake during an event related to a crane has been toned down. Objective identification has been improved for different elevations in order to help player locate them more easily.
Visceral will be adding more special vehicles (like fuel trucks) to the maps. The studio is also working on a fix for those that get stuck, and you’ll likely be able to melee them to nudge them out of the way.
Heavy vehicles will be getting weak spots in the rear so that players have a fighting chance of bringing them down. Finally, there will be better indications for vehicle occupants. It’s important to know if you’re the wheelman for the bag-carrier, after all.
Visceral will be updating the “community most wanted” list throughout development. Of course, more information will be revealed as we get closer to the title’s October 21 launch on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PC. For more, check out our hands-on coverage from E3.
[Source: Battlefield]
Our Take
Communication has been one of EA’s weak points with the Battlefield series, and this kind of communication will go far to repair some of the damage dealt to the brand by Battlefield 4. I hope that EA continues to take cues on communication from the Titanfall playbook.