Activision and Treyarch have revealed the much anticipated upcoming entry into the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops 4. After nearly two decades worth of Call of Duty games, this year’s entry appears to be the most fully fleshed out of the bunch; although, this reveal will be talked far more about what it didn’t show than what it did.
Zombies
Zombies is a staple of the Black Ops line of Call of Duty, and it has really taken on a life of its own. With fully fleshed out storlines, Zombies started as a hidden mode in World at War and has nearly turned into a standalone feature. This year, there will be three fully-featured campaigns for Zombies, and they look as loony as ever. The three zombie adventures are IX, Voyage of Despair and Blood of the Dead. Difficulty levels will also be reintroduced to give a better experience for those wanting it to be easier, or harder for those that want that extra challenge.
Multiplayer
As for the multiplayer side of things, it definitely looks like a CoD multiplayer, although there are a ton of more subtle changes that seem to be game changers in the way rounds will play out. Most notably, healing is no longer a re-gen system. A player has to manually heal by jamming a stimpack into their arm which keeps you from being able to fire your weapon for a second or two. In essence, this should provide for a more tactical match and longer survivability since players can hide out for a second or two and regain some health after a fire fight. An even larger alteration was done to the mini-map.
Treyarch went with a “Fog of War†idea where the immediate surroundings of a player is visible to all teammates. So, in theory, sticking together should provide for a pretty large zone to see enemies. Of course, this can probably be negated by various perks, and, as usual, an enemy firing without a silencer will still reveal their location on the mini-map. As if these changes didn’t make enough of an impact, player movement has also changed with the removal of the exo-suit, no wallrunning or sliding to be seen here. But, there is a semi-strange “guns up†feature that will allow your gun to be ready to be fired while doing action such as throwing a grenade.
Specialists
Specialists make a return on BO4, but with quite a few additions to the team. The slight changes in combat should make synergizing your specialist pick with the team’s composition all the more important. The weaponry has also been given quite an overall upgrade. Many of the guns you’ve come to expect are still here, but now skins and moddable pieces are exclusive to a gun. This should make the guns appear far more unique than in previous entries. The overall feel of the guns has also been reworked. There is now a more realistic recoil pattern to each weapon. Now, the recoil will have a more predictable pattern.
A PC Focus
Treyarch/Activision made it a point to showcase that the PC version is its own beast and that this won’t be a messy port. With changes exclusively for the PC version being made, such as unique recoil and characters animations. Beenox (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered) is handling the PC version. As expected, it will be exclusive through the Battle.net client, which should come as no surprise since the PC version of Destiny 2 also made its way there and presumably any subsidiary of Acti-Blizz.
Blackout
Finally, as was teased and rumored recently, there is going to be a Battle Royale-style mode for BO4 titled, Blackout. Noted to be 1,500 times larger than Nuketown, Blackout will feature characters spanning Black Ops’ entire history, and battles will take place in all terrains; land, air and sea. Sadly, we didn’t really get all that much more news about it. No gameplay trailer. No player count. Not even the slightest of teases. I highly doubt that it would ever be possible to see 100 players on the map, but I would be more than happy to see it. Blackout seemed more like a, “Hey you guys wanted it, so here it is†than a mode that is anywhere near showing off. They better bring something great because I’m sure their competitor’s have a Battle Royale-esque mode of their own to debut.
I must be missing something, right? Oh. Yes. There is no traditional single player campaign to be had in Black Ops 4. Instead, stories will be told through the other modes. While this certainly seems like a nice PR statement right now, the trailer did seem to showcase some involved storytelling bits for the Zombies campaigns. Did that many people play the single player campaign anyway?
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is set to release on PS4, Xbox One and PC on October 12, 2018.