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Sovereign Land is the eighth episode of the single player campaign of Battlefield Hardline. While looking for a safe-cracking machine in the Mojave desert, Nick and Boomer are captured by Tony Alpert and his followers after Stoddard puts a bounty out for Nick.[1]

Synopsis[]

The tracking phone Nick planted in the briefcase of cash in the previous episode has been located in Miami, at Dawes's corporate headquarters. Surveying the blueprints of Preferred Outcomes's HQ, Boomer notes space on the plans for a safe, and has the receipt of a safe ordered to the HQ. He and Nick agree that this is where Dawes probably stores his illicit cash.

Boomer states that the safe is too strong to be blown open, and so the only way of breaking into it will be through using the Brute, a safe-cracking robot owned by some people whom Boomer used to live with in the Mojave desert. Boomer confirms that he has phoned them to ask for permission to borrow it, and they have agreed.

In the desert, Nick & Boomer meet Boomer's associate and ex-girlfriend Dune Alpert and drive to the compound - an ex missile silo - to get the Brute. Tony Alpert - a white supremacist and leader of the group - imprisons Nick and Boomer, the latter much to the dismay of Dune. Alpert explains that Stoddard guessed Nick might head out here, and so phoned him to offer him $250,000 cash for Nick. Dune gives Boomer a lock pick to escape as she hugs him goodbye, and the duo subsequently escape their underground cell and make it out of the silo.

Nick retrieves his gear, defeats the criminals and drives away with Dune and Boomer. Dune momentarily holds them at gunpoint for ransom, before revealing that she is joking, and that her gun isn't loaded. At that moment, Alpert's henchmen driving VDV Buggies attack the car, destroying it and injuring Dune in the process. Nick and Boomer defeat Alpert's gang while taking shelter in a remote gas station.

Dune leaves the duo in a car to go to the hospital and leave the Mojave Desert for good, asking Nick to tell Tony he's a "wang". She then points them in the direction of Alpert's private airfield, where the Brute is located. Nick and Boomer drive in a VDV buggy to the airfield, while Nick tells Boomer about his abusive father Hector, who worked for the Cuban secret police.

Boomer fixes a plane to escape while Nick retrieves the Brute. Stopped by Alpert's gang in Buggies and Transport Helicopters, Nick enters a broken down AC-130 tank, and defeats his attackers. Alpert then comes in a Type 98 and has a tank duel against Mendoza, with Nick winning.

The duo escape in the plane, leaving the Mojave Desert and ending Alpert's Hot Shot manufacturing operation. Nick and Boomer return to Tyson and Khai with the Brute, the final thing required to raid Preferred Outcomes's HQ to get Dawes' money.

Related Achievements and Trophies[]

The following achievements/trophies can be completed on this mission.

Image Name Criteria Achievement Points Trophy Type Information
From Their Cold, Dead Hands From Their Cold Dead Hands Complete Episode 8: Sovereign Land 20 Bronze Trophy
A Craftsman's Tools A Craftsman's Tools Find your weapons in Sovereign Land before instigating combat in the trailer park 25 Silver Trophy This achievement requires the player to reach the Tactical Gear box marked as the objective after escaping the underground cell without getting spotted by, killing, or knocking out the enemies.

Trivia[]

  • At the ATF Agent's grave near the burnt down house, if the player walks up to it, there will be a prompt to press the Action to "Pay Respects". Pressing that will cause Nick kneels down and place his hand on the dirt mound in a respectful manner. This is a reference to a scene in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare where the player would press the Action button to pay respects to a fallen Marine at a funeral. The scene has been referenced, criticized, and parodied by various community sites on the internet due to how the scene trivializes the act of remembering the dead at a funeral before their burial.
  • When the player infiltrates the camp, they can hear guardsmen claim "Last weekend, twenty Russian Spetsnaz Special Forces comrades landed at Denver Airport." "So we're being invaded. Without a single shot fired." "What's going to happen is this: those twenty Russian soldiers are going to become a hundred. And then two thousands. Then we're going to get hit with some false flag bubonic plague or anthrax." This is a reference to the film Red Dawn, which takes place in a small town in Colorado during the Soviet and Cuban invasion of the United States.
  • This is the only episode where the CAR-556 is seen in the campaign.
  • One of the men inside the building will refer to Mendoza as a Mexican, even though he's Cuban.
  • When the episode was revealed before release, it held numerous references to the "Join or Die" cartoon and Gadsden flag. Due to harsh criticism that the references were an attack on the Tea Party movement, however, most references were subsequently removed from the final version of the game and replaced with fictional separatist elements.
    • Some enemies in this level bear a modified Gadsden flag (notably the first enemy taken down, minus the text) or confederate cavalry hats, reaffirming the right-wing libertarian nature of the group.[2]
  • One of the pieces of evidence in the level, the "Boomer Dossier" states that Boomer was a Lance Corporal in the US Army. However, Lance Corporal has not been a rank in the US army since the 1920s.
  • There are 2 bugs in this level:
    • One of them is where you are in the cell on the part where Boomer is supposed to open the door with the key, the cutscene will immediately finish without the door being open, unable to get out.
    • Another is the part where you are in the airfield where you are using the plane to shoot enemies. When you die here, the screen will be stuck loading infinitely.
  • You can actually get softlocked in this level. By proning under table before Boomer starts attempting to fix the the radio, you will be trapped there and unable to stand.
  • The song playing when Nick, Dune & Boomer get into the car at the Diner to drive to the compound is "Here and Gone" by the band Mississippi Twilight.[3][4]
  • The abandoned air base's name - Bissell Air Base - is a reference to one of the writers of the game, Tom Bissell.
  • When driving from the Last Chance diner to the compound, Nick passes a film billboard for a (fictitious) western film named The Devil You Know directed by Isaac Clarke, the protagonist of Visceral's Dead Space series.
  • In the game files, this level is named SP_Nevada_Desert.

Gallery[]


References[]

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