Call of Duty returns this October with Black Ops 4. Read on to check out the latest news!
Amongst all the wide array of opinions about Call of Duty, whether packed with praise or contempt, Treyarch has managed to capture a consensus among fans. The Black Ops series' rise in popularity and selling power seemingly toppled the prominence of Modern Warfare. Where Advanced Warfare's movement system got under many skins, Black Ops 3's was lifted up. Just a few weeks ago, Prop Hunt was added to the nearly three-year-old game. This reverence is due to the constant work Treyarch puts in to refine Call of Duty's systems and flood players with content and Black Ops 4 looks to do just the same.
At the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Community Reveal event we had the opportunity to get hands-on with the game for the first time and take the new changes for a spin. Treyarch and Activision talked a lot that day about Zombies and the battle royale mode Blackout. Unfortunately, neither was playable (and more unfortunate was that Blackout was only given a quick teaser trailer revealing no gameplay) but attendees were able to sink their teeth into a new, very familiar multiplayer offering.
Black Ops 4, to put it succinctly, is like Black Ops 3 without the wall-running and thrust-jumping. To be a little more dismissive, if you've played Black Ops 3 multiplayer, you've almost experienced what we have. But we aren't in the business of being dismissive and Black Ops 4 is much more than a retread of a game that released three years ago. Treyarch is sticking with the "boots on the ground" theme that was revitalized with last year's WW2 and crafting a multiplayer mode that bridges both a narrative and mechanical gap between 2 and 3.
Specialists are returning this year but in a more prominent way. Black Ops 4 brings the hero shooter element back with new and returning specialists. This time around, however, players don't need to pick between a Specialist's ability or equipment. In his debut, the Specialist Ruin could either pick between a massive temporary speed boost or an AOE ground slam, both set on a recharge that would increase based on performance. Now, Ruin's ground slam is his permanent "super" and players can choose whether or not to assign him with his special issue equipment, a grapple gun which has him rapidly close long distances. Also returning are Seraph and her high-damage revolver, Battery and her grenade launcher, and Firebreak with his flamethrower. Specialists have been tuned in a way that makes them a bit more malleable while keeping all the power. In Black Ops 3, we enjoyed Seraph's deadly revolver but rarely used her secondary ability which added a 2x multiplier to any score obtained during its use. This time around, the revolver remains as her ability and players can equip her with a deployable respawn beacon, turning her into an extremely effective Specialist. But if players miss their grenades and other equipment, they can pick those over specialist equipment.
Call of Duty has always put weapons at the forefront but Specialists truly allow players to branch out and explore another aspect of character customization and expression. During our session, only 8 Specialists were available to play and some of them definitely felt situational depending on the mode. Crash's ability to heal players and boost their health through walls was awesome, but only felt like a clutch ability in a few instances. Otherwise, players are just wildly darting around looking for someone or anyone to heal. Yet his assault pack deployable that granted more score with killing enemies was useful during the entire match. Torque's ability to put up a reinforced barricade that blocks fire and damages enemies is cool, but best implemented during objective rounds. One thing that may prove problematic is that after a Specialist is picked, they are locked out, which could create a decent amount of ill will, like when people choose certain heroes in Overwatch or one operator in Rainbow Six: Siege.
As the bread and butter of the franchise, guns are crucial to the enjoyment of any Call of Duty. The range of LMGs, snipers, shotguns, assault rifles, and submachine guns during our session won't come as a surprise to any veteran of the series. Guns fire as you would expect them to and handle and fire expertly. Depending on the hand that holds them, any gun in Black Ops 4 will be efficiently lethal but Treyarch is doing more than just making gunplay great again. Instead of the almost universal shared pool of attachments, each gun has a specific set of attachments that can be equipped to it. While several of these attachments will be the same across multiple guns, it's cool to see Treyarch trying something new. We noticed some guns with a second tier of a specific attachment which only increases their effectiveness, but these can only be used when a specific perk is activated, further layering on the strategy.
Guns are also getting their own kind of Specialist treatment as each gun can be equipped with an Operator Mod to increase its versatility. Mods such as a bayonet attachment for an assault rifle, a two-round burst for a rifle, or suppressive fire for an LMG add another touch to how players can customize their loadout. This is also coupled with the returning Pick 10 system which forces players to pick and choose between 10 pieces to their build. Each weapon, attachment, perk, equipment, wildcard, and piece of gear will count towards the total of 10. The Pick 10 system never felt like it boxed players in and the same holds true here. It lets one player focus on overloading a gun with attachments while another works on packing themselves with perks.
A unique change to Black Ops 4 is the "fog of war" which alters players' situational awareness and their relationship with the game's mini-map. During a multiplayer match, most of the mini-map is darkened with players who shoot their unsuppressed weapons or identified by UAVs still showing up as red dots anywhere. With the fog of war, a player's vision cone brightens up the part of the map they can see and any enemies therein. This means that if one player on your team is advancing, you will be able to see their cone of vision lighting up the mini-map and also marking if they see an enemy. For teams who are ruthlessly coordinated, the fog of war heightens team awareness and gives them the advantage. And for a Specialist like Recon, who can shoot sensor darts or emit a vision pulse to see enemies anywhere, yet another layer is added onto this already complex multiplayer cake.
What truly separates Black Ops 4 from the all its brethren is the use of a health mechanic. That's right, health no longer regenerates automatically over time. Players now trigger healing with a dedicated button and won't recover health until it is pressed. Don't fear, healing has infinite uses but a variety of implementations. By hitting the heal button, players will stab themselves with a healing stim and watching their health points rapidly rise back up. After a few seconds, healing will go off cooldown and can be used again. We tried to estimate the time it took for the cooldown to reset and it felt similar to waiting from a near-death red screen to a clear full health screen in previous Call of Duty games. Players can also equip a stim shot as a gear slot which heals to full instantly and reduces the cooldown even more while also allowing the use of a weapon.
By incorporating a health pool and a healing mechanic, Treyarch adds a critical piece of tactical thinking to a multiplayer match. Will players go on the aggression while an opponent heals or will they retreat and heal themselves to wait for a better opportunity to kill? There were many times during our session where death was inevitable but healing allowed us to not fall and return to the fight even quicker. This puts the player in a position of power as they are always weaving throughout the map and never out of the action for too long.
Payload, Seaside, and Contraband were the three maps available for play with a handful of modes. Payload takes place in a missile facility where players have tight interior corridors to fight in or one central room with high ceilings and long sightlines. The action can be taken outside to navigate around boxes and obstacles. Contraband is an outdoors map in a lush beachside area where players can swim around and make their way to a central bridge that acts as a chokepoint between multiple windowed firing ranges. Seaside is great for objective play where a wide open central plaza leads to back alleys and two large buildings where most of the fights bleed into.
These three maps weren't too big and offered plenty of variety in terms of encounters. Control was our favorite mode of the day which gave both teams 25 lives and two points to either capture or defend. Players have to be more tactical than on normal control point objectives because the use of limited lives means you can't just constantly flood a point with support. Playing on a PlayStation 4, Black Ops 4 is an incredible looking game with fluid action, even at the pre-alpha state on display. Because Treyarch isn't releasing a traditional campaign with Black Ops 4, players will see exposition and story delivered through the multiplayer in different ways. It's a shame none of this was revealed outside of a teaser trailer. Black Ops 3 gave small tidbits on each Specialist's background but players had to do a lot of grinding. Hopefully these story beats are much more accessible, cohesive, and entertaining this time around.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 at this point likely won't wow any players not already attached to the franchise. With just the multiplayer to see, we weren't shown much outside of another incredibly fun Call of Duty shooter fest. Of course, this isn't a bad thing in any way because the changes introduced in Black Ops 4 are welcome and look to refine the formula even more. What we really want to see now is how the Blackout mode looks and plays, how complex Zombies is, and what treats multiplayer offers outside of engaging fights with players across the world. Treyarch seems to understand the hype behind the game and come release, we can find out whether it will deliver.
Call of Duty Black Ops 4 releases on October 12 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Battle.net.
Article written by: Ben Sheene
Note: Activision paid travel expenses for BioGamer Girl to attend the 2018 community event to write a preview of the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 game.