It's not often that "fewer explosions" tops a game studio's to-do list, especially when the game in question is something like Battlefield Hardline . But it's number one on the latest edition of the " Community's Most Wanted " list of changes Electronic Arts and Visceral is making to the game.
It turns out that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and that includes blowing things up. "We have heard your complaints about breaking the cops and robbers experience with the amount of heavy explosive weaponry available – but we didn't want to sacrifice fun!" EA wrote in the first entry of the new list . "We've made changes to reduce the frequency of explosive use to focus on the core gameplay, and we've made the use of explosives much more believable now."
The rest of the list is a mix of specific changes and vague promises. A bug that caused medkits and ammo boxes to block line of sight checks during character revives has been fixed, and vehicles have been made tougher, so that enemy players won't be able to "turn your sedan into a four-person death trap quite so easily."
On the fuzzier side of the coin, there's also "Making the world deeper and more interactive," which includes the addition of interactive doors, radios, ammo lockers and other bits and pieces, and "Revisiting the in-game HUD," with an eye to "establishing a clearer visual difference from BF4 and improving the messaging of the in-game HUD, from objectives to player status information." The Mechanic class is also being rebalanced to be "better in more situations," and may be renamed as well; suggestions for a new name may be made in the blog comments.
To be fair, the Community's Most Wanted list is meant to "outline some of the fixes and improvements we are making to Battlefield Hardline," rather than provide a detailed breakdown of specific fixes and updates being made to the game. "We want to reinforce how important your feedback has been," EA wrote. "We have a lot of other awesome changes underway and will be sharing more soon!"
Battlefield Hardline is set to launch on October 21.
