‘Battlefield Hardline’ Game Writer Wants A Story Tone ‘That Games Don’t Often Have’

ByInigo Monzon

Sep 12, 2014 09:27 AM EDT

Tom Bissel, the writer of Visceral Games' "Battlefield Hardline," shared how he developed the story for the upcoming shooter game through a "Battlefield" blog post.

According to the scribe, he first approached the game's creative director Ian Milham to understand his vision for "Hardline." After the quick meeting, Bissel learned that Milham wanted a story that deviates from traditional video game plots and elements.

"Ian didn't want the characters to talk about 'the plan,' or where to go next, or how evil the bad guys are and how awesome the good guys are," Bissell wrote. "Rather, he wanted characters that revealed themselves as messed up, funny, compelling people."

As a result, Bissel and his co-writer Rob Auten were able to develop a script that gave depth to the characters, even the minor ones. In other words, the important elements of the plot don't just revolve around the protagonist but the other characters as well, according to IGN.

"'Battlefield Hardline' doesn't just reinvent the video-game storytelling wheel," Bissel explained. "Our goal, however modest it might sound, was to try to achieve a tone that games don't often have."

As to what these tones are, Bissel said he made sure that the dialogues during cut-scenes play an important role in building up the action of the game, Gamenguide reported.

"If there's a thing I'm proudest of in this game, though, I'd have to say it's the ambient thug dialogue, which is the kind of sentence only someone who writes video games will ever find himself saying," Bissel said.

"Because we wanted our gameplay to encourage players to observe and monitor potential combat encounters before going live with gunfire, we needed a lot of guard and thug chatter," he continued. "Hardline is stuffed with so much ambient guard and thug chatter - the total game script is well over a thousand pages."

Although considered as part of the "Battlefield" game series, "Hardline" veers away from the franchise's global warfare and military elements. Instead, the upcoming game focuses on the combat between law enforcers and criminals in the city.

There is no specific release date yet for the game but it is scheduled to come out in early 2015. It will be available for the PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.