Hardline

Battlefield Hardline is a first-person shooter video game developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts. It was released in March 2015. Unlike the previous games in the Battlefield series, Hardline focuses on crime, heist and policing elements instead of military warfare.

Upon release, the game received a mixed critical reception, with critics praising the game's multiplayer mode, accessibility and voice acting, while criticizing the game's plot, stealth and narrative. It was the last game to be developed by Visceral Games before the company shut down in 2017.

The So Called "Plot"
In 2012, Miami Police Detectives Nick Mendoza and Carl Stoddard make a drug bust that goes violent. After arresting a fleeing suspect, Captain Julian Dawes has Nick partner up with Khai Minh Dao to follow a lead to cocaine broker Tyson Latchford. Forcing his associate to wear a wire, they find a new drug called Hot Shot being sold in the streets of Miami and rescue Tyson from a group of armed men. In the process Khai is severely wounded, putting her out of action for several weeks. After returning (against her doctor's orders), Dawes orders the two to bring in Leo Ray from the Elmore Hotel but are forced to fight their way through armed men connected to drug dealer Remy Neltz, who is distributing the Hot Shot drug. While capturing Leo, Khai beats him up for seemingly insulting her.

Leo's information leads the two detectives to the Everglades, where drug bales are being dropped. Investigating the area, they discover several of Neltz's drug operations and Leo's mutilated corpse, who was presumably killed for cooperating with the Miami Police. They eventually find Neltz only to escape back to Miami. Before leaving, he mentions that he took a deal from Stoddard. The officers corner him in a Miami warehouse only for Stoddard to kill Neltz as he was about to elaborate more on their deal. Nick leaves in disgust after Stoddard and Khai take some cash before more officers arrive. Later, as a hurricane makes landfall, Dawes sends Nick and Khai back to the crime scene for any evidence incriminating Stoddard. Finding Neltz's recording implicating Stoddard, Nick finds his former partner in a meeting with other dealers but is forced to work with him to rescue Khai from more armed men. The three later meet Dawes, who destroys the evidence implicating Stoddard and revealing that himself and Khai are corrupt. The three betray Nick due to his refusal to go along with their scheme, framing him for laundering Neltz's drug money.

Three years later in 2015, while on a prison bus, Nick escapes with the help of Tap and Tyson. The mastermind behind Nick's escape is none other than Khai. Despite raw feelings about her betrayal and being framed, Nick leaves with Khai and Tyson for Los Angeles. Khai briefs Nick that during the three years he has been in prison, Dawes founded private law enforcement firm Preferred Outcomes, having 'cleaned up' Miami and is starting to expand into other US cities. Wanting to ruin Dawes, Khai sends Nick and Tyson to rendezvous with Marcus "Boomer" Boone and the three of them disrupt Korean Mafia leader Kang's drug business (Dawes' main drug distribution spot in LA). Although not finding much, Nick and Khai follow another lead to the house of drug kingpin Neil Roark. During Roark's meeting, Nick comes up with the idea to steal Dawes' money before he can launder it and uses Khai's phone as a makeshift tracking device by placing it in a briefcase to be taken to where the rest of Dawes's money is being kept. After surviving a brief assault by Roark's men, Nick and Khai make their escape.

Discovering Dawes' money is kept in the penthouse of his corporate HQ skyscraper back in Miami and behind an impregnable vault, Boomer calls a former associate of his for a safecracking robot. He and Nick drive to the desert to meet Boomer's contact, his ex-girlfriend Dune, who sets up a meeting with her father, Tony Alpert. Alpert backstabs them, however, revealing he knows Nick is an escaped felon and that Stoddard has placed a bounty on him for his capture alive. Nick and Boomer escape their prison and retrieve their gear from Alpert's compound. Along the way, Nick discovers that Alpert was behind the creation and manufacturing of the Hot Shot drug, and murdered an ATF agent to cover up his plans of starting a civil war. Dune helps the two escape to an abandoned airfield but separate after surviving Alpert's ambush at a gas station. At the airfield, Nick retrieves the safecracking robot and wins a tank duel against Alpert, before he and Boomer escape in a plane Boomer had repaired.

As Khai, Nick, Boomer, and Tyson prepare to leave for Miami they are ambushed by Stoddard and his men. Nick kills his former partner and sends a picture of Stoddard's body to Dawes. The group arrive at Miami and infiltrate Preferred Outcomes HQ. They find the vault in Dawes' penthouse only to find it booby-trapped. Tyson is gravely wounded by the blast but survives. Nick answers Khai's ringing phone in the empty vault to hear Dawes on the other side, telling Nick to come find him at Santa Rosita off the coast of Florida. Nick departs from his group on the island, who leave to find medical attention for Tyson, and infiltrates it alone to Dawes's mansion. Nick finds his corrupt former captain in his office, where Dawes tells him that he wishes Nick to join him and take over Preferred Outcomes once Dawes is gone and that the two are akin to be "more criminal than cop". Nick agrees to the last remark and unhesitantly shoots Dawes dead. Searching his office, he finds a letter addressed to him from Dawes explaining why he framed Nick three years earlier and follows a passage to his underground vault. Inside the vault, Nick finds Dawes' laundered fortune, which is now his, left to wonder how he will use it.