Though Blizzard’s first day at Gamescom 2018 didn’t follow the pre-planned schedule, some stuff did go as planned for Activision, as we did get to hear more about Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. The developer talked about working with Beenox and creating the “best PC version” for Call of Duty ever. Sadly, more details were provided about Blackout, the upcoming battle royale mode for Black Ops 4 at the event itself.
PC Gamer did manage to speak to senior PC producer Jonathan Moses, Beenox co-studio head Thomas Wilson and Treyarch director of communications John Rafacz though. When asked about the vehicles that would be available in the mode, Rafacz said, “There’s a range of vehicles that I think are well-balanced to match with the on-foot combat. It isn’t like you’re driving a tank, trying to fight against a dude with a scavenged submachine gun.
“They’re all well-balanced. We’ve been having a lot of playtests at Treyarch over the last several months getting ready for this, and it’s a blast to play. It feels great. It feels like Black Ops.”
Though the trio didn’t offer any information on loadouts, Wilson did talk about the map design and how classic maps played a part in shaping the overall playing field.
“It’s easy to understand why people see it as a patchwork, but all of the maps are built seamlessly together,” he said. “The environments are all inspired by classic maps, and you’ll see moments from Firing Squad and Nuketown in there, but it’s not like we just dropped them right next to each other and glued them together. It is still very much an environment built for Black Ops.”
For those well-versed with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite: Battle Royale, Blackout will follow a familiar gameplay loop. That being said, the Black Ops flavour adds quite a bit on top, according to the developers. “It’s an extremely coherent presentation but on top of that it’s ten years of heritage of Black Ops put together, through weapons, characters, environments, vehicles—land, sea and air. There’s a lot there to dig if you’re a Black Ops fan,” said Rafacz.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout beta will take place in September, while the full game releases on October 12th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.