Only five days remain before Battlefield Hardline’s multiplayer support on Xbox and PlayStation is ended. Server services will be retired permanently on Monday, 22nd June.
EA outlined its plan to shut down the Battlefield Hardline servers in March, explaining a two-stage process to end support for the crime-themed, 2015 Battlefield spinoff. Ahead of the server shutdown in the next month, the game and its extra content were taken off sale on 22nd May.
After the change, consoles will only have access to Hardline’s single-player campaign. Even though it’s no longer sold, Battlefield Hardline still appears as part of the EA Play catalog. If you already own a digital copy, you can keep downloading and playing the campaign without an internet connection.
If there’s a bright spot, it’s that the PC edition won’t be affected. You can still buy Hardline straight from EA through its own launcher, or via Steam.
PC servers are running as well, though SteamDB suggests it sees fewer than 50 daily users on Steam. Still, this update could spark renewed curiosity about the title. It also wouldn’t be the first time this week that a struggling game has drawn players back in to say goodbye.
EA may even try to bring players back by dropping the game’s price substantially. This kind of move is something EA has used repeatedly over the years—Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 5 are recent examples.
Battlefield Hardline is among the most distinct entries in the Battlefield spin-off lineup—and that even includes Battlefield Heroes, with its unusually cartoon-like visual style. Developed by Visceral, the studio behind Dead Space, it swapped out the militaristic tone the series is known for in favor of a law-enforcement premise, putting officers in direct conflict with criminals. While the game tried to create civilian-style counterparts for some of its military gear, it generally played like a standard Battlefield title, though with less emphasis on armored vehicles.
Even with the criticism directed at its single-player campaign, the multiplayer side was received more warmly by the Battlefield community. That said, players didn’t stick around for long, meaning some of its final DLC releases were nearly unplayable at launch due to a lack of players.
Hardline is also known for introducing inventive ways to tackle certain Battlefield problems—some of which, including the ability to reload ammunition from a nearby Support player, later showed up in subsequent entries that weren’t developed by Visceral. It’s likely to be remembered as well for entertaining modes such as Hotwire, which are ironically some of the farthest departures from the main Battlefield series.
Those impressions come up again in the Eurogamer review, which you may want to check out if you’re curious about how the game was received—particularly given the political backdrop of its launch.