There are a total of seven game modes, and five of them are completely new to Hardline. Heist, Blood Money, Hotwire, Crosshair, and Rescue are completely new modes requiring a different tactical mindset than the more traditional Conquest and Team Deathmatch modes.
Heist
Heist is all about pulling off that big job or that perfect score. The criminals are trying to infiltrate a cash-filled vault, and the cops must regulate them. Once the criminals break in, they have to nab two bags of cash and jam out with them back to each of the two base points.
There’s more than one way into a vault. Use secondary breach points, like the roof on Bank Job, to create alternate routes.
Overview
Battlefield: Hardline has a great number of brand new modes that are major game-changers in the Battlefield franchise; Heist is just one of them. Allowing for many of the same tactics classic game modes require, such as running and gunning, mid- to long-range sniping, full lockdown defense, teamwork and communications, and tactical aerial assault. In Heist, your team is tasked with either protecting the vault holding all of the cash or stealing the cash from said protected vault. Each team must work with their squads at all times in order to win a round of Heist. Your team can have the best shooters, but if every man is out for himself, failure is inevitable.
Blood Money
A huge pile of loot has been intercepted in transit. The criminals are fighting to steal the money, while the cops are trying to secure it as evidence. Each team is trying to secure the money in their team’s vault, but it’s not safe there. Raid the enemy’s vault to help your team score the most money.
Scan the area for enemy activity while interacting with the money pile or an enemy vault. You can aim and fire your weapon while stuffing your pockets with cash.
Heist Tactics
• As the squad leader, work with your team’s hacker to cover your sector and time your attacks accordingly to fight alongside your friendly squads cooperatively.
• Find the high ground on any Heist map and use the zipline to escape to any extraction point much quicker than any conventional method.
• Always remember, there is probably another way. Most Heist maps have three or more entrances to a money vault, and opening every possible route makes the criminal team’s job much easier. For those maps with two separate cash locations and one way each to pick up the bags, they are always separated by some obstruction or distance and protecting both is not quite as simple as it sounds. Go for one then change it up to keep the enemy guessing. The separate bag locations are usually out in the open, leaving the attacking team the opportunity to clear the area around a money bag before running in to pick it up.
• Winning a firefight in Battlefield: Hardline sometimes takes a lot more tactical thinking than just skill with your weapon. When defending a vault, do not stand immediately in the general location of any single bag. The enemy will be running into the vault looking for the cash. Make them work to find you and use their greed as a distraction to kill them before they can make any type of escape.
• When a criminal drops a bag, a return timer automatically starts. This timer is slow, but piling your entire police squad around a dropped bag dramatically speeds up this timer. If you keep criminals from touching the bag, it is returned to the vault.
• Once the vault is breached and the criminals are beginning their push to extract the cash, the police deploy in what seems like the farthest point away from the extractions, making them incredibly difficult to defend. Drop a satellite phone near the center of the map or close to the extraction your squad is tasked to defend, making your deployments much more useful in a pinch.
Overview
Blood Money is the ultimate culmination of tactful striking and competition-based intense warfare packed into one single game mode. This game mode puts your thievery skills to the test, letting you choose from a virtually unlimited range of tactics and possibilities on defeating the enemy team. Each team is tasked with stealing money from a neutral location and bringing it back to their own vault. At the neutral money pile there is an unlimited amount of money separated into stacks of cash. A player can hold up to ten stacks of cash, but gathering a single stack at a time leaves you vulnerable the longer you wait and the more money you wish to take. You can leave and take the money you have gathered at any time, but the choice is yours whether you choose to risk your neck and fill your pockets or slowly build your vault by running one or two stacks at a time.
The money pile isn’t the only place your team can gather cash from—in fact you shouldn’t rely on the money pile alone. If a player is holding an amount of cash, that player can then be killed and drop all of their money for anyone with room in their pockets to run by and pick up. In some ways, killing enemy players for their cash is far more efficient than taking from the money pile because simply running over the cash automatically picks it up. Each team’s vault can also be raided, meaning the enemy team can run in and start stealing from your vault, thus depleting your team’s collection. Communicate with your team and make sure that the money you are gathering isn’t going straight to the enemy’s collection.
Blood Money Tactics
• Once your team has a small lead, order a couple of squads to begin stealing from the enemy vault. This distracts the enemy from stealing from the money pile as well as depletes their cash count, extending your lead whether the cash makes it all the way back to your vault or not.
• Communicate with your team when attacking the enemy vault. Players at the money pile may be able to spot any enemies retreating back to their base and give you a heads up before they get there.
• Use vehicles whenever possible. An enemy on foot can’t catch you running away with money that they need. Helicopters and mobile command centers make for quick money collection and a stronger defense.
• Play the midfield when the money pile is too hot. Live to fight another day and take down enemies running away with money. Don’t be afraid to let the other team do the hard work.
• Make sure you’re safe and protected before getting too greedy at the money pile. It’s already a high-risk, high-reward situation so why not lower the risk by keeping your friends close?
• Never leave your vault unprotected. A single squad can enter your vault and take most, if not all, of your money in a single raid.
Hotwire
The nitrous oxide boost provided by the stunt driver vehicle upgrade is great for putting some distance between your Hotwire car and any pursuers.
The criminals are trying to steal a list of marked cars while the cops are trying to repossess them. Use your driving skills to catch up with the enemy, and bring a friend riding shotgun to take them down.
Overview
Hotwire is the culmination of everything that is cops and robbers. Chase down the criminals and repossess those stolen vehicles, or play as the criminals and get the job done by stealing every vehicle on the list and make sure the cops stay off your back. A lot like Conquest, Hotwire is all about capturing the five control points spread out all around the map. Your team can bleed the other’s tickets if you control more points than them, except there is a twist. These control points are ground vehicles of all types. They’re fast and highly destructible which makes good drivers essential to winning a round of Hotwire.
The objective of this game mode is to take one of the Hotwire vehicles and get it to maximum speed. The control point does not begin to capture until the vehicle is going at a fast enough speed to start the process. Once the Hotwire vehicle is captured, it must stay at a high rate of speed to keep control of the point. Once the car slows down, it begins to un-capture, turning the vehicle back into a neutral point until you regain enough speed to recapture it. Since these control points need to gain speed, they need to continue moving around the map, and as long as they are within the map’s general boundaries, they can go anywhere. However, Hotwire vehicles can be destroyed, but they spawn back in their original position.
Hotwire Tactics
• Communicate with your team. If your team is close to destroying an enemy Hotwire vehicle, you or someone listening can quickly get to the original spawn point of that vehicle and capture it as soon as it spawns again.
• You can deploy in a controlled Hotwire vehicle, granted there is room. Doing so, and protecting the vehicle, is one of the more useful actions you can take for your team.
• Work with your squad and your team’s hacker to call out enemy locations. Knowing about an upcoming ambush makes it avoidable, saving the lives of everyone inside the Hotwire vehicle, and more importantly, the objective itself.
• Grenade launchers and rocket launcher Battle Pickups are the most effective items for destroying an enemy-controlled Hotwire vehicle.
• Destroying enemy Hotwire vehicles slows down the enemy team from winning the round, but it means nothing unless your team is capturing control points. Capture Hotwire cars while the rest of your team goes for the kills. If there are uncaptured vehicles on the map, you’re missing out on a big opportunity.
Conquest
A Battlefield staple, Conquest is based on the idea of controlling a base. Capture a base by standing near a flag on foot, in a vehicle, or in the skies. If your team owns more flags than the enemy you slowly reduce their tickets, which are their ability to respawn. The first team to run out of tickets loses.
Pay attention to the highlighted zone on the minimap. This is the control point’s capture zone.
Overview
The classic Battlefield game mode is back, but this time it’s on tighter, faster, more intense maps. Conquest is all about dominating the other team by controlling more key locations than they do and shooting them along the way. Gain control of a control point by standing near the flares on the ground in the center of the key location. Instead of flags, Battlefield: Hardline uses flares and shows the objective’s area of control by designating it on your minimap as a red, white, or a blue highlighted area. Stand in this area to either gain control or prevent the enemy from gaining control. The more teammates you have in the area causes the control point to be captured faster. If there is an even number of players from each team in the area, the control point is contested and is not captured by either team. Pay attention to your ticket count because no matter which team controls what, the first team to run out of tickets loses.
Conquest Tactics
• Even if your team holds a control point, it is best to defend it from inside the area of control. Whether you see an attacker or not, they don’t begin to gain control until you are outnumbered.
• Spawn on your squad leader and set up satellite phones to keep your squad intact and prevent yourself from being attacked without help.
• Work with your team’s hacker to make sure each squad has orders. Following orders not only gets you bonus points, it also keeps your team from getting flanked or losing a control point. For best results, assign one squad to each control point. For the duration of the match it’s their job to attack/defend that single point.
• Pick your spawns carefully. Except at the start of a match, it costs your team one ticket to spawn. Spawning directly into the line of fire (and dying) unnecessarily wastes tickets.
• Balance your squad and make sure they are equipped with first aid packs, defibrillators, and ammo packs to keep everyone full and healthy. A self-sufficient squad can operate a long time without being wiped.
Team Deathmatch
Team Deathmatch is infantry only and has the easiest objective to understand: Shoot the enemy team more than they shoot you.
Get out of the streets and find a good location to lockdown during Team Deathmatch.
Overview
Team Deathmatch is simple, kill the enemy more times than they kill you. The team who runs out of tickets or the team with the least amount of tickets by the end of the round loses. However, just because this is a simple concept does not mean it is a simple strategy. While taking into account the plethora of gadgets, grenades, and Battle Pickups, you must develop ways to outsmart the enemy as well as outshoot them. Each map, while being located in a much smaller area than the entire map, is very different which means you and your team must outfit yourselves in a manner that complies with your surroundings. Keep your eyes open, watch your squad’s back, and then aim and shoot in order to win a round in Team Deathmatch.
Team Deathmatch Tactics
• Outfit your squad with first aid packs and defibrillators. The name of the game is to keep your ticket count high, so by bringing your team back to life and keeping them alive you lose far fewer tickets.
• Equip weapons that are made for the ranges at which you are fighting. Shotguns are no good if your strategy is to move through the wide open spaces of the map, and sniper rifles are debilitating when you’re fighting indoors at close-quarters.
• Find a stronghold and stay there. If the enemy knows where you are, they will most likely come to you. If you are holed up in a stronghold, like a building or a well-protected corner of the map, you have the upper hand.
• Set up satellite phones so that your squad can spawn in a well-guarded and sheltered area, keeping them protected while they get familiar with the area they just spawned in. Spawning near your team also allows for better fortification of an area.
• When on the run, check corners and rooftops for enemy campers and snipers waiting for you to walk into their sights. Don’t give them your head to shoot at too easily.
Rescue
Rescue is one of the two competitive modes. This is a cop-centric mode that lets you step into the boots of a SWAT operative tasked with saving innocent lives from the hands of criminals. Lead your team carefully into dangerous environments and get the hostages back to safety. Be careful though, because there are no second chances in this mode.
The professional’s gadgets are very useful during Rescue. Use cameras to detect the enemy team and decoys to lure them into traps.
Overview
Rescue is a game mode that requires an intense amount of cooperation and strategy because unlike any of the previous modes, there’s no respawning here. The police must infiltrate the area in which two hostages are located and carry at least one of them out and back to the extraction area, located near their deployment area. It is up to the criminals to keep the hostages secure and tied up for collateral. The premise of Rescue is simple. It’s the knowledge of the map, communication with your team, and being able to outsmart the enemy that wins each three minute round of this brand new game mode.
Rescue Tactics
• Strike as a team. Simply bombarding the enemy doesn’t work in this game mode because of the fact that you simply can’t respawn. So once the five members on your team are dead, the round is over and you lose.
• Equip a gas mask and gas the immediate area of the hostages. You can’t kill the hostages so don’t worry about them. Gas the area and clear the enemy out so you can swoop in and rescue the hostage.
• Never bunch up! Moving too close to a teammate or two makes you an easy target for the enemy to kill multiple players in one move, which can be detrimental any single round.
• There are only three minutes in a round, so be careful but don’t delay. The police have a seemingly daunting task. Paying attention to how many enemy players are left alive helps you make quick tactical decisions.
• You only need one hostage to win, so pick the one that is the easiest to rescue. Or if given the opportunity, take both and go separate ways to split the criminals’ forces as they search for you.
Crosshair
In this second competitive mode, a former criminal turned state’s witness is on the run from his former crew. The criminals are trying to erase the VIP while the cops are trying to get him out safely. Once again, there are no second chances—one death and you are out for the match.
Grappling hooks and ziplines are very effective for the law enforcement team in Crosshair. Use grappling hooks to quickly access rooftops then zipline down to the extraction point.
Overview
Crosshair is very much like the second phase of Rescue, but both teams have a full set of players. The twist is, one of the players on the police team is the VIP and this player must be protected at all costs. The VIP is armed with only a Bald Eagle pistol and is dressed very differently than the police. He also has special information and knows exactly where to find Battle Pickups on any given map. The objective of Crosshair is to get the VIP to one of the two possible extractions. It doesn’t matter how many police are left alive, if the VIP gets killed the round is over and the police lose. However, if the criminal team is killed the police automatically win. There’s no need to reach the extraction point if all opponents are dead.
Crosshair Tactics
• The VIP should never be left alone. Armed with only a pistol, the VIP should always be under the protection of at least one police officer.
• Use distractions and deterrents when attempting to extract the VIP. It only takes a few seconds once the VIP has begun the extraction, so distracting the enemy at the opposite extraction could give you just the amount of time you need to win.
• Don’t give your position away on defense. Stay hidden and let the police pass by while you keep your eye out for the VIP.
• Pick a leader to call the shots and communicate with the VIP to coordinate the path and direction your team should take in order to succeed.
• With only three minutes in each round, you need to move fast but don’t rush in blindly. The police can’t win if the VIP is dead, so check your corners then move out before you run out of time.