Visceral have made a game named Battlefield Hardline, about particularly shooty policemen

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Somebody scuppered a months-in-the-making PR campaign yesterday when they uncovered mention of a Battlefield Hardline in the files of Battlelog, the series’ PC server hub.

EA and Visceral have broken cover to confirm that, yes, there is a police-themed Battlefield spinoff coming in the Autumn, and they’d very much like us to pay attention when they unveil it at E3. Hardline will bring “new twists and turns” to multiplayer shooting, and take Battlefield and action games “in a new direction”.

EA last night reaffirmed practically all of what was found in Battlelog’s files without saying a word: Their Hardline site is plastered with images of SWAT vans, heists gone awry, police sunglasses and Manhattan-style skyscrapers.

Meanwhile, Visceral Games president Steve Papoutsis was drafting up a message for the official EA blog.

He told fans that Hardline was a “brand new series” within Battlefield, set against the backdrop of a much-loved genre: “the war on crime and the battle between cops and criminals”.

The game was conceived several years ago, at an internal EA meeting in Barcelona where Papoutsis met DICE king Karl Magnus Troedsson for the first time.

“I’ve always loved Battlefield and KM was a huge fan of Dead Space, which I was working on at the time,” said Papoutsis. “We started talking about different ways we could work together, different ways we could take Battlefield and action games in a new direction.

“We’ve been reading all of your comments and we’re excited to be going into more detail soon on the ways we’re adding new twists and turns to the foundation of Battlefield multiplayer and more about how we’re bringing our strengths at Visceral to single player.”

Dataminers yesterday uncovered references to game modes named Turf War, Heist and Blood Money, and four apparent classes: Enforcer, Mechanic, Operator and Professional.

I guess the Payday series didn’t exist “several years ago”, huh? Do you think there’s room in the vault for another heist shooter?