I’m sure there are going to be hundreds of reviews of the Battlefield Hardline Beta now that it’s in the open. I wanted to share a perspective that is a little bit different. I had the displeasure of taking part in the Alpha or Private Beta. I don’t recall which it was but I’m going to go with Alpha and you’ll see why below. This allows me to do a little then and now analysis. Lets dive in shall we?

The Battlefield Hardline Alpha, to put it bluntly was an ugly mess. It looked like they used the older Frostbite 2 engine instead of 3. The cops and robbers character models and cars looked like they were bought cheap off of Turbo Squid or some other cheap pre-fab site. The weapons were copy/paste out of BF3 or 4 and frankly so were the game modes for the most part. The only saving grace of that experience was the new game mode, who’s name I don’t recall, added where each team had an armored car on each side of the map and it was a game of attack and defense to see who had the most cash in their truck at the end of the game. I’m sure you can imagine that over all I wasn’t thrilled.

So this brings us to today and the now open beta of Battlefield Hardline.

This time around the game makes a much better showing. Oddly missing is the first new game mode from the alpha that I mentioned above but this time we get two more new game modes. The first is Hotwire. A mode where  you race the other team to “hotwire” a car and then race it across map to a capture point. The second new game mode is called Heist. It’s almost exactly what you imagine it to be. There’s a bank and the robbers are trying to get in and then get away with the loot. Bags of money have to be moved from the bank to the get away points. This makes for a weirdly offensive and at the same time defensive game. The final game mode available in the best is conquest. If you’ve played Battlefield you’ve played this.

Visually the game looks good this time. It looks like they’re using a modern game engine, the car and player models look professionally done and the weapons have all been switched up for a different set than just a copy and paste job from Battlefield 3 or 4. This isn’t a new game engine though so don’t expect any particularly mind blowing visuals.

Since Alpha this game has come a long way. It’s turned from a giant turd in to a game with a lot of potential. The graphics won’t be mind blowing but the new game modes are very fun. I’m not sure the game is going to be worth the $60 price tag and no doubt additional $20-$30 season pass. I sure as heck won’t be pre-purchasing the game until I can get a full view of what all the game modes are and if the game runs more stable than Battlefield 4 did. The potential is high but I think you’d be smart to wait and see how the game pans out.