Urban Combat

Battlefield Urban Combat is a cancelled project that was under development by DICE that was to be the original first installment in the Battlefield series. The game was centered around the setting of "cops and robbers".

Following the acquisition of Refraction Games in 2000, DICE had started development of the title and were able to develop several early prototypes. Despite this, the studio could not get the game's theme to work properly and cancelled development of the title to start development of Battlefield 1942.

During an internal EA meeting in Barcelona in 2011, Steve Papoutsis and Karl Magnus Troedsson, the vice presidents and general managers of Visceral Games and DICE, respectively, met with one another to discuss how they could take the Battlefield series to a new direction. The cancelled Battlefield Urban Combat came to mind during the discussion and the two agreed that the idea of "cops and robbers" should be revived as they were confident they could pull it off. This idea eventually resulted in the development of Battlefield Hardline.