Another modern military shooter!
Boom! Crash! Brrrat-at-at-at!
I am so enthused.
Today EA’s press conference ended on what was supposed to be the ultimate mic-drop moment: a new game! Beta launches today! Consoles available in this room for you to play! OMG LOOK AT THE JETS OF SMOKE COMING OUT OF THE STAGE!
Represented by the announcement of Battlefield: Hardline, the modern military shooter has become a flashy spectacle without substance. A game that doesn’t even know what it’s about anymore, but hey, look at all these explosions! Boom! Crash! Brrrat-at-at-at! Isn’t playing cops and robbers fun? Look at all the hyper-realistic collateral damage! Pew pew pew!
I’m underwhelmed by Battlefield: Hardline
The last five minutes of EA’s E3 press event was incredibly disappointing. Now, that’s not to say that the game doesn’t look technically impressive – it does. It is just a derivative of a million other games. The modern military shooter is becoming more and more played out and the games industry simply cannot afford to sustain the tired genre.
A genre that doesn’t even cater to its specific audience anymore – it straight up panders to that audience.
The gameplay trailer for Battlefield: Hardline is a menagerie of gimmicks that an 11-year-old would love: loud explosions, zip-lines, car chases, an excessive number of helicopters, and clichéd cops vs. robbers gameplay. Boom. Crash. Brrrat-at-at-at.
The modern military shooter continues to think that it will skate through development cycle after development cycle just because “Look how cool this is! Pew pew boom lol!” But we are all beginning to realize that the spectacle of military shooters is undeservedly glorified, and I expect the response to the Battlefield: Hardline beta will show that we are getting sick of this genre.
EA thought Hardline would drop a bomb-shell on their audience and blow us all away. But we’re still sitting here, underwhelmed and saddened that EA doesn’t even realize how badly they blew the conference…
Boom… Crash… Brrrat-at-at-at…
