Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is jumping on board the battle royale bandwagon this year, with the Blackout Mode presenting the series’ take on the most popular game format in the world at the moment. But, it turns out (quite obviously enough), that developing a massive mode like battle royale is a fair bit different from the traditional multiplayer modes that Call of Duty has been known for- that, in fact, this leads to new learnings for the standard multiplayer modes picked up from battle royale, and vice versa, along the way.
It’s been a different and new challenge. But as we’ve been working on it, we’ve had a lot of ideas and cross-pollination between different parts of the game. We’ve brought stuff to multiplayer that we learned while making Blackout, and vice versa,” said Treyarch’s Co-Studio Head Dan Bunting in an interview with PC Gamer UK.
“Investment in the weapon systems is important in Black Ops, but especially in a survival mode like Blackout that’s played on a massive scale you have to think about how the weapons perform in a different way. Bullet drop and bullet travel time are things we’ve never had to consider in Call of Duty before. But in terms of the actual core combat loop, everything you love and know about that tight Black Ops gunplay and the feel of movement is all just as relevant in Blackout as it is in competitive multiplayer.”
It’s interesting to see how the series’ regular multiplayer modes will be influenced by battle royale, and vice versa, this year, that is for sure. I have some notions of ways that Call of Duty could be improved by imbibing some things from a battle royale mode- hopefully, Treyarch goes through with that. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is due out later this year in September, for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.