Battlefield Hardline remains one of the more interesting entries in EA’s massive FPS franchise, with the 2015 title being primarily developed by Visceral Games (as opposed to DICE) while moving away from military conflicts in order to focus on the “war on crime” – having you play as either police special response units or bog-standard criminals. Over a decade on from the game’s initial release, EA have now announced that BF: Hardline will officially be delisted from consoles this May; though it will remain playable and purchasable on PC.

Taking to Twitter to make the announcement, the official Battlefield Comms page confirmed that “On Friday, May 22nd, Battlefield Hardline on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be removed from digital storefronts, and you will no longer be able to purchase it and all extra related content, such as DLC.”

They continued, “Online services on these platforms will end on Monday, June 22nd. While Hardline will no longer support online functionality on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, players who own the game will still be able to play the single-player component.”

As mentioned, this delisting only pertains to the console version of Hardline, with EA confirming that “Today’s update does not impact PC. Battlefield Hardline on PC will remain available, including online services.”

No direct explanation was given for this decision, however it is safe to assume that the game no longer has enough of a population on console to justify it remaining online. Of course, Hardline released in an era prior to the rise in crossplay, and so the game relies on there being a healthy playerbase across each platform individually.

Given that Battlefield Hardline was a PS3/PS4 generation title, it is unlikely that many console players are going back to experience what was a pretty controversial release. All that said, here’s to hoping that the PC servers remain online and active for years to come.

KitGuru says: What did you think of Battlefield Hardline back in the day? Are you glad that pretty much all multiplayer titles released nowadays include crossplay? Let us know down below.

Security researcher Markus Gaasedelen delivered a presentation at the RE//verse 2026 conference, where he unveiled a boot ROM-level exploit for the original Xbox One. This discovery is particularly significant because the Xbox One has long been regarded as the “unbreakable” console, having survived over a decade without a public hardware breach.

According to Tom's Hardware, during his talk at RE//verse 2026, Gaasedelen demonstrated that by targeting the platform security processor's boot ROM, he could patch, decrypt, and boot code from the very bottom of the firmware chain. This level of access sits effectively below the OS and standard security layers, granting supervisor-level control over the hardware.

Note that this is not a simple software modification or an easy end-user “softmod”. The exploit requires physical intervention via a two-stage voltage-glitching process named Bliss. The first glitch bypasses the Memory Protection Unit (MPU) setup, while the second hijacks execution during a header read. Furthermore, the researcher explicitly stated that this breakthrough applies only to the original “fat” Xbox One model from 2013. The more modern Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and current-gen Xbox Series consoles remain unaffected by these findings.

Gaasedelen's motivations appear to be rooted in the technical challenge and the long-term viability of the hardware rather than the traditional piracy associated with console hacking. Having published work on Xbox security for several years, his focus remains on hardware preservation and repairability. He mentioned during the talk that he views the project as a way to prevent these machines from becoming e-waste. Unlocking the hardware at this level could eventually allow for the installation of third-party operating systems, turning these platforms into functional Linux workstations or media centres.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru says: It was only a matter of time before someone with enough patience cracked the Xbox One. Still, it took a lot longer than anyone expected.