Battlefield: Hardline is “More of a Personal Kind of Setting”, Inspired by Films and TV

Activision’s Call of Duty franchise has often taken many nods from classic action films, including Terminator, Bad Boys 2 and whatnot. While it hasn’t really been a hallmark of the Battlefield franchise, Visceral Games general manager Steve Papoutsis recently spoke to IGN about the numerous influences behind Battlefield: Hardline.

“There’s a number of people on the game team that love a variety of different TV shows, and movies, and films. And one of the things that keeps coming up over and over again in terms of inspiration, one of the series has been Justified, a TV show. It kind of blurs the line between what’s good and bad.

“Some of the stuff that I personally like; I love Pulp Fiction; I love the bank heist in [Batman: The Dark Knight], I thought that was awesome. Of course, Die Hard is one of my big favorites. But I think another thing people have said about us is that they feel like our heist map that we showed at E3 – High Tension – was reminiscent of Heat. So those are some of the things that are some of our inspirations.”

Hardline had a very simple start, beginning as a desire by Papoutsis and the team to pursue a more personal setting. “When we started working on Battlefield and came up with the idea for Hardline, we were excited about trying to create a new setting for the franchise. Taking it away from the military that you’ve seen in the past and making it more of a personal kind of setting, and focusing on the war in the streets; going cops and criminals was really appealing to us.”

Is it appealing to the players though? We’ll find out when Battlefield: Hardline launches in March 2015.