While the gameplay in all three of these modes is rock solid, my largest disappointment with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is how its future appears ridden with micro-transactions, Battlepasses and DLC passes for future content in all three of these modes. Perhaps the detail long-time fans will appreciate the most is the ability to fully customize their Zombies experience from the ground up with the new custom games lobbies, where the host can augment nearly every detail of the mode to make it more difficult or even more goofy. Treyarch is the creator of the original Zombies mode and are still the only one to push it into new and fun directions. My personal favourite is Voyage of the Damned, which places all 4 of the new characters on a hunt for a lost artifact in the Titanic after it hits the iceberg and begins to sink. Players immediately have access to 3 story rich Zombies maps, IX, Voyage of the Damned, and Blood of the Dead, which is a remake of Black Ops 2’s Mob of the Dead. Zombies is the last part of the Black Ops 4 multiplayer experience and is the biggest it’s ever been at launch for a Call of Duty title. The mid-game especially feels deserted once the first wave of players have been killed off during the looting phase, which can lead to some very boring moments of just running from circle to circle before you’re boxed in with the last 15 surviving players. My only gameplay criticism is that I hope that Blackout can be further optimized to bring in 100 players instead of its current 88 at launch. The mode is missing a sense of reward and progression, but with recent reports, it’s clear Activision is looking at Fortnite’s seasonal Battlepasses with the colour green in their eyes as a way to supplement more content into the experience.
I loved that this map is just other classic COD maps slapped together because it was immediately intuitive to navigate for a player who has stuck by the Black Ops series. Games always ran steady at over 100 FPS on my RX Vega 56, the textures and lighting looked extremely sharp, and the map is downright amazing to play in. Blackout by all accounts is literally just a formulaic battle royal experience but handled by a top-tier shooter developer with an extremely optimized and fluid gameplay system.Ĭonsidering my battle royale poison has always been PUBG, I was easily floored by the level of optimization in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. This new Battle Royale mode is the highlight of the Black Ops 4 experience and for good reason, it’s extremely fun and highly addictive despite not changing any single element established by its competitors, Fortnite and Player Unknown’s Battleground. The second layer of multiplayer is perhaps the most important to the success of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Blackout.
The only caveat to this hero based system is that classic game modes, including TDM, weren’t nearly as fun because players were more focused on individual play rather than contributing with their team to take on a common goal. Each ability helps the team out in different ways and contributes to tactical interplay between squadmates in the objective based gamemodes, such as Control and Heist. Ruin is a great scout because his grapple gun gets him to the objectives fast, Crash is a great support who provides the team with heals and armour piercing rounds, and Firebreak is a great tank because his ultimate ability clears out rooms and protects him from enemy fire. While the community was against this approach after playing the beta, I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would because the specialist abilities feel diverse and well thought out.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 – Review Images Provided by Activision Blizzard