Battlefield Hardline needed to be different from Battlefield 4, says Visceral Games

From faster cars to increased player movement speed, everything about Battlefield Hardline faster than what traditional Battlefield fans may be used to.

No, it's not an effort to more closely align with other shooters like Call of Duty or Titanfall; rather, the game has been designed to get you back into the action more quickly. Of course, players aren't always open to change and when asked if Visceral Games was concerned that they might alienate fans of the franchise, they seemed pretty confident in their design decisions.

“You’re never going to please everybody,” Battlefield Hardline's lead multiplayer designer Thad Sasser told us in a round table discussion. “We know this isn’t a military game. It needs to be its own distinct game from Battlefield 4. There needs to be a reason to play this versus a reason to play Battlefield 4."

''We feel these are the right steps forward in creating our own identity for Hardline, and creating a slightly different experience from what Battlefield 4 has to offer," he continued. "If it was just Battlefield 4 again, well you can already play Battlefield 4, but Hardline is going to give you a different experience, a faster-paced experience where it’s easier to get back into that battle more quickly.”

Between the faster gameplay and the relatively smaller maps from the recent open beta, Battlefield Hardline has drawn comparisons to games like Counter-Strike. Although we were assured that the "classic Battlefield scope of huge maps" will be present in Hardline, Sasser also said it wasn't exactly a bad comparison to have.

“Happy to being compared to one of the most popular shooters of all time? Yeah, I’ll take that,” he said.

In the same round table discussion, Sasser also explained to us why counter-knifing was removed from Hardline, another change that may anger some traditional fans.