Call of Duty Black Ops 4 will launch on the Xbox One, Windows PCs and PlayStation 4 on October 12th, 2018. I’m comfortable opening a news post with that information because that’s how confident I am you will want to know about all the ways Activision and Treyarch are breaking from tradition with this new shooter.
Activision, the publisher of the Call of Duty series, and developers at Treyarch revealed Call of Duty Black Ops 4 in a livestream today. To say that this game breaks with tradition is an understatement.
If you find yourself playing Call of Duty games for their campaign and not their multiplayer, cancel that Black Ops 4 pre-order now. As rumored, the game doesn’t have a single-player narrative at all. That makes it the second major game that Activision has launched without a story mode. Titanfall didn’t have one either. That’s something its developer, Respawn, added back with Titanfall 2.
Don’t expect to play Call of Duty Black Ops 4 on Steam either. The PC version of the game will rely on Battle.net, the software that powers Destiny 2 and games made by Blizzard, another Activision company.
All that being said, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 has plenty of things going for it. Blackout is the game’s newest multiplayer mode, and it sounds exactly like Player Unknown Battlegrounds and Fortnite. As you probably know, there’s nothing bigger in gaming right now than Fortnite.
The game’s weapons, style and battle tech are from the near future. So, gone are the jump packs and special abilities that nano technology provided you in previous games. That should make for a less insane play experience.
Also, the Specialist class system is back. Some of its Specialists are from Black Ops 3.
Finally, if you’re hungry for story and co-operative play, the game’s Zombies mode will have a campaign for you to enjoy by yourself or with friends.
Black Ops 4 sounds like a good fit for fans overall. I last played a Call of Duty story with in 2014. Sure, I liked Advanced Warfare, but that story wasn’t good enough for me to stick around. If Activision is brave enough to try this on a Call of Duty game, they must have metrics showing most gamers never try the campaign. At least, I hope they do.
On the other hand, the worst thing you can do in video games is release something that feels derivative. Sure, all art is built on something else. However, people don’t like it when they can tell. That Blackout mode is going to either be a runaway success or something gamers mock for a very long time for Activision just copying what’s working for Fortnite.