As far as Battlefield launches go, the series has a history of being nigh unplayable during the first few days of launch. Battlefield 4 is infamous for having problems for the majority of its first year on the market, and only recently it became bug-free. It’s no surprise then that players were skeptical leading up to Battlefield Hardline‘s launch; however, it seems to have had the smoothest Battlefield launch in recent history.
When Battlefield 4 launched, it was marred by server issues as players tried to connect to the game at the same time. Since then, poor hit detection, connection issues, lost save files, and a range of other problems plagued players through out its first year. So far, Battlefield Hardline isn’t displaying many – if any – connection or server issues.
Some players are reporting gameplay issues in the Battlefield subreddit for Battlefield Hardline, but these problems largely amount to campaign issues or driver-related problems for those playing on PC. Some are reporting that they can’t find games, but they so far seem to be in the minority – not to downplay the fact that players are indeed having issues, but they certainly aren’t as widespread or game breaking as those seen in Battlefield 3 or 4.
In an interesting turn of events, Battlefield Hardline is also the lowest-rated Battlefield game in the series (in terms of review scores). Sitting at a comfortable 76 on Metacritic for the PlayStation 4 (73 for Xbox One, and 71 for PC), it’s not necessarily receiving bad scores; rather, it just doesn’t hit as hard as its predecessors, such as Battlefield 3 (89) or Bad Company 2 (88).
Battlefield Hardline is an interesting take on the series – rather than opting for all-out warfare, for what the franchise is known, Visceral decided to present a cops-and-robbers drama, featuring an episodic story mode, and a variety of multiplayer game modes based on the cops-and-robbers theme.
Have you had any issues with Battlefield Hardline so far? Let us know in the comments below.
Battlefield Hardline is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.