Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 Details Revealed

Unless you have been living under a rock then you will know that Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 is the next Call Of Duty game coming in October this year. Activision kindly shared more details of what players can expect in the game during a live show yesterday and it is not everything you thought it would be. The rumours beforehand indicated there would be no single player campaign and instead we would have a Battle Royale game mode and it turns out those rumours were pretty spot on!

Boots On The Ground Multiplayer Madness

Many Call of Duty fans have been against the futuristic game play that became the focal point of quite a few of the most recent Call Of Duty games. There are still some players who would like to play with the futuristic game mechanics but after a disappointing outing for Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare it looks like CoD: Black Ops 4 will remove any jet packs and wall running in order to maintain a more boots on the ground focused style of game play.  A welcomed strategy if you ask me!

That said, it doesn’t come without its quirks. There appears to be 3 main differences to the general game play that make this Call Of Duty stand out from other iterations. Firstly, there are battle classes, also known as Specialists, where players can use different perks during combat to get an edge over other players. This is very similar to the specialist classes in Black Ops 3 but the way it was described during Activision’s Live Event made it sound more like an Overwatch system of balancing offense and defense. Play as one particular class to use a grapple hook to get across the map quickly or play as another class to get advanced vision or a defensive shield. Whilst not 100% new, it does look like this has been well thought through.

The next change to game play is the introduction of forced health regen. No longer with your health regen naturally over time, instead you will need to manually regen your health, much like you would reload your gun. This means that players need to strategically think about when they need to heal before going gung ho into the middle of the battle field. Whilst this action looked fluid in Acitvision’s video, it does pose questions over how quick the game play can be if you need to think about reloading and healing, all whilst trying to shoot enemies. Maybe there will be too much going on or maybe this is just the thing that game needed to feel fresh. Probably not the latter.

The final thing that will no doubt change game play is the update to weapons. I’m not talking about updated animations or SFX, I’m talking about the fact players will be able to shoot whilst also lobbing grenades, running, swimming, etc. Basically, your gun is up at all times meaning players will have a much more fluid transition between firing their primary weapon and using other tactical offensives. Only time will tell if this change will become OP for some players resulting in balancing issues in the multiplayer game play.

Zombies Is Back

A Black Ops game without zombies would be like separating Shaggy and Scooby. I’m not sure why I likened this CoD relationship to a cartoon relationship but I did, get over it! I doubt there will ever be a Black Ops game that doesn’t also have a zombies game mode but for CoD: Black Ops 4 we will get a brand-new zombies story line. Completely separate from all other zombies adventure in older games, we will have a new world, new characters, new weapons and new enemies, meaning players will get a unique zombies experience in this game.

It also looks like Activision want to shake things up in zombies too by introducing limited time player events, also known as Callings. These events will allow players to veers from their main objective and go on daring adventures to help out some random stranger that has appeared. Interesting idea but I’m not sure how much this adds. Then again, I’ve never been a huge fan of zombies so what do I know.

All players who take part in zombies matches will also get a unique code that will allow players to verify the game settings for that run through which will no doubt help when verifying player leaderboards and proving who is truly the best. So all in all, it looks like the Zombies game mode will probably please most Zombies fans but nothing to hang your hat on.

Blackout: Last Man Standing

This is what Activision really wanted to tell you about. Whilst there are some changes to the rest of CoD: Black Ops 4 it is relatively similar to other Call Of Duty games. This is more like small iteration that complete overhaul. However, Activision have made the decision to introduce a Battle Royale game mode in Black Ops 3. This will be done ‘the Call Of Duty way’ and will essentially involve dropping a large amount of players on a huge map, approx. 1,500 time the size of Nuketown, to duke it out to be the last man standing. The map will contain popular scenes from previous Call Of Duty maps so we may still see Nuketown in there somewhere. Player will also be able to traverse this large map with the use of vehicles. In case you were wondering what this game mode was called, it’s Blackout.

Despite the underwhelming name, the game mode does look like it could be an interesting way to change up the Call Of Duty game play. Or at least a distraction from the multiplayer game mode for a few games but I couldn’t help thinking that Fortnite still has the better looking Battle Royale game mode. Maybe I will change my mind when I play Blackout but it has a lot of work to do if it has any chance of overthrowing the two BR behemoths that are PUBG and Fortnite. It definitely got the biggest cheers during the Live Event which would indicate there is a hunger for it, if only just for employees of Activision.

Team Up or Go Home

Everything that Activision showed was all based around multiplayer game play. In fact, there is very little for you to do in game if you are purely going in for single player. Many thought that there would be a single player campaign included for this Call Of Duty but Activision have outwardly said that they wanted to focus on the multiplayer aspects of the game:

‘There was never a traditional campaign. We’ve always wanted to tell stories in different ways. We’ve always wanted to celebrate our community, especially how you play the game with friends. The heart and soul of this game is how you play games with friends and we wanted to do more with that than we’ve ever done before.

In multiplayer we’re delivering a series of solo missions that can take you deeper into understanding each of the specialists you’re going to play in multiplayer. It’s going to give you backstory. It’s going to give you some worldbuilding setup of, why do these characters exist? Who do they work for? What kind of operations do they run on? Just giving players a sense of connectedness to the world they’re engaging in for so long, and tell the stories of those characters we just barely touched on in Black Ops 3, and introduce some new ones in the process as well. That series of missions will also help you refine your skillset with each of those characters, so you can go into multiplayer and feel a sense of mastery.’

So there you have it. If you like single player campaigns, this is not the game for you!

No word yet on platforms but the usual promotion is live, pre-order now and get access to the multiplayer beta. What do you think about the new Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4? Will you be buying this new CoD game or is this too little, too late?