Cliff Bleszinski, the creator of the famed Gears of War series, and former Epic Games bigwig, has started doing this thing recently where he plays big releases, and livestreams them while he does, giving a running commentary of his honest opinions of the game as he plays through it. The first game he did it for was Ready at Dawn’s controversial The Order: 1886, and now, he has turned his sights on Battlefield: Hardline (although here, he is talking about it on Twitter rather than streaming).
After the first hour of playing the game, he appears to, however, be mostly impressed with it. His exact words? ‘I enjoyed the first hour of the campaign for Battlefield Hardline. I get the “cinematic cop show” vibe they’re going for, only wish there was more “doing” and less “watching.” Felt like out of that first hour I only really interacted for 15-20 minutes. And for AAA that’s a lot for the first hour, sadly, these days.’
Bleszinski certainly has a point about AAA releases lacking interactivity these days- one must only see the recent push towards ‘cinematic gaming’ to understand this trend. It is also worth noting that his is far from the only criticism the campaign has gotten- as a matter of fact, he appears to have gone softer on it than most review outlets did.