Why EA moved from the military to police combat with Battlefield Hardline (interview)

LOS ANGELES — Electronic Arts has made a big bet with its Battlefield franchise, a modern combat first-person shooter video game whose latest edition appeared at the giant Electronic Entertainment Expo tradeshow this week in Los Angeles. Instead of pitting soldiers from armies against each other, as is the norm in the series, Battlefield Hardline pits cops against criminals.

The new game coming this year from EA’s Visceral Games studio features missions like bank heists where criminal stage elaborate jobs and then have to evade helicopters, armored vehicles, and heavily armed SWAT teams. Will gamers go for it? We talked with Karl Magnus Troedsson, the general manager of DICE, the traditional development house for Battlefield.