Call of Duty just showed off their new game coming out later this year which is Black Ops 4. The fourth installment to the Black Ops games. While the game looks fine for a Call of Duty game, there is no denying that Call of Duty is now jumping onto the Battle Royale train with this upcoming installment. Yes, that’s right. Call of Duty will be getting a Battle Royale mode in place of having no single player.
Welcome to Blackout. Black Ops 4’s new Battle Royale mode.
The narrator in the video says, “I don’t have to explain to you what Battle Royale is”, and that alone tells you that the market is saturated with these games. The big titans Fortnite and PUBG have made their way onto mobile devices. If you don’t know what Battle Royale is, it’s the Hunger Games. If you don’t know what the Hunger Games are, basically in these games 100 players are dropped onto a huge map that shrinks over time and players must scavage for supplies and weapons all while battling to the death. They are fun to play, especially with friends in squads of 4.
Treyarch has decided to throw their hat into the ring with the upcoming Black Ops game. Before I get into my concerns and critiques about Black Ops having a Batlle Royale, let me give some fair compliments.
To give credit they do have a unique spin on the game mode. While this does feel like a game mode that can be tacked on to it, the map is designed to be a huge battlefield filled with sections that are maps from previous games. This means there will be towns that are the maps fans love like Array, Firing Range, and Nuke Town. There will be vehicles from the games added in. Vehicles ranging from land, air, and sea. You can also play as your favorite characters from the games. In the teaser, you can see Frank Woods, Jason Hudson, and Alex Mason in the new battle royale mode. You can also use weapons that have been in the games not just exclusive to Black Ops 4. So M16, AK47, and the MTAR could all very well show up in this mode. So at least there is stuff here for fans of the series to look forward to.
But let’s get into the concerns. Activision is the company that publishes Call of Duty. Activision is a company that has profits on their mind all the time. Activision loves using the loot box system in their games. It’s shown up in the recent Call of Duty titles and Destiny. While their loot boxes have not gotten as bad as EA’s Battlefront 2, it has gotten ridiculous at some points. In the remaster of Modern Warfare there was so much from weapon skins, character skins, melee weapon skins, and new weapons, which is as far as it went to unbalance since a person can pay money to obtain these new weapons and have an advantage. But lets just cut the BS, this new mode is gonna be littered with loot boxes. These loot boxes can contain the fan-favorite characters, vehicle skins, weapon skins, and who knows what else that will be exclusive to this mode. So you have the multiplayer loot boxes, Blackout loot boxes, and zombies mode loot boxes. If this is true this is gonna be such a turn off for players.
The next thing is a problem I see with any AAA game throwing this mode in. Why are you trying to compete with Fortnite? Fortnite is free and has claimed the throne for battle royale games. It dethroned Player Unknown Battlegrounds which is not even a full $60 game but instead half of that. Why would anyone who plays either of those games come and play this Blackout mode when they have to pay $60 and additional money if they want in-game items? It just seems silly to me. Even though the mode does have a Call of Duty spin on the mode, not many people care about Call of Duty anymore. It’s had its day in the sun. It’s all about Fortnite now and just like how every developer tried making military shooters when Call of Duty was popular, developers are making battle royale games or modes to jump in on the craze and Call of Duty has fallen in with the rest.
The next thing I have a problem with is that this is going to be the start of an oversaturated market. We just had Cliff Bleszinski, creator of the Gears of War trilogy, close a whole studio because their Battle Royale game, Radical Heights, didn’t catch on to anyone. It was free to play Battle Royale and it was dead on arrival.
It just seems like everyone is trying to make a mode. Rockstar is even having some battle royale mode being implemented in Red Dead Redemption 2. There is so many battle royale modes and games out there that it just feels like an over saturated market.
Lastly, I don’t get why they are getting rid of the single-player campaign. Black Ops 1 and 2 had fantastic campaigns. Now the series which had some of the best campaigns for military shooters is getting rid of a whole piece of a game. I get that not many people even finish the campaign for Call of Duty but this does not seem like innovation and feels like a step back with a sequel. Black Ops 2 had choices and multiple endings to the game that felt like innovating the campaign. Why is removing it the next best idea? I don’t like it and it makes me worried that other shooters will follow in its steps. We have amazing FPS campaigns like DOOM, Wolfenstein, and FarCry. Why not hire some developers who have worked on those previous projects to do a campaign? Hell, you have Bungie at Activision, who have made Halo, have them help design a campaign. This was my fear with games like Overwatch and Rainbow Six Siege not having single player campaigns.
I’m hoping for the best with Black Ops 4. I’m not a big Call of Duty fan but I’ve always enjoyed the Treyarch games, but this has me worried. Worried that it could be a letdown and worried that it might influence other developers out there.
Variety Viso 