My hands-on preview of dying a lot in Battlefield Hardline: Criminal Activity

In the first round I played of Electronic Arts‘ Battlefield Hardline: Criminal Activity expansion, I came out with zero kills and lots of deaths. It’s not that the first-ever multiplayer expansion for Battlefield Hardline is particularly hard. I just didn’t realize that I was playing with some of the world’s best players of the cops-and-robbers shooter.

I went to a hands-on preview session at EA’s headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., and they neglected to say at first that I was playing with a bunch of YouTubers who were invited because they were so proficient at Battlefield. But it was still fun to play the expansion before everyone else got their hands on it and to talk to a developer at EA’s Visceral Games afterward. The expansion, which will be available soon, is part of EA’s usual strategy of extending the life of its Battlefield releases with downloadable content (DLC) that keeps die-hard gamers playing. And from what I saw in my session, those die-hard gamers are going to be quite happy. Since first-person shooters are a multibillion-dollar market, keeping the retention and engagement high in the face of competition from Activision’s Call of Duty are big priorities for EA.