Responding to critics who say that this year’s Battlefield Hardline looks too iterative, developer Visceral Games has detailed the differences between Hardline and last year’s Battlefield 4.

In an interview with PlayStation Lifestyle, lead multiplayer designer Thad Sesser explained the improvements, tweaks, and additions the studio has made to the Battlefield 4 formula. Hardline will be a very different game, Sesser said. Specifically, the team is focusing on making Hardline-specific improvements to the Frostbite 3 engine to make it work better with a cops-and-robbers game.

“We improved the vehicle physics and so on because, in a cops and criminal setting, vehicle collisions are way more important than in Battlefield,” Sesser explained. “We’re making fundamental changes under the hood to some of these systems. In terms of the UI, we still want it to be recognizably Battlefield, but we’ve got some changes.”

Hardline is also not recycling assets from Battlefield 4. The designer said that the game includes brand new weapons, gadgets, vehicles, and other elements of game. “We got a wide range of maps,” he said. “We got a lot more weapons. We got a lot more cool gadgets. We got a lot more exciting stuff to show you in the upcoming weeks and months. We got a slew of new game modes.”

“I think you’ll understand where the value proposition is with this game,” he continued. “There is a lot of new content. It’s not just a re-skin or a re-use of assets. We’ve got all new assets, we got a lot of stuff still coming in.”

GameSpot editors got their hands on Hardline recently. You can read our preview and learn more about the game here. The beta for PlayStation 4 and PC is still running and ends this Thursday. The game launches on October 21 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC.

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