After progressively ramping up the pace of the moment-to-moment gameplay with successive instalments like Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3, and Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty has tried to make a concerted effort to slow things down a bit recently with a more “boots to the ground” approach, which was easily apparent in last year’s WW2. That change in direction is going to continue with this year’s Black Ops 4 as well, with which Treyarch aims to go for a more “tactical” pacing than before.
In an interview with ShackNews, Treyarch co-studio head Dan Bunting was asked about what the team’s main goals for Black Ops 4 are, and he gave a pretty detailed answer, talking about the changes they’re trying to make, and how they’re looking at the current gaming landscape as well to decide what would suit the Call of Duty franchise best. One of the things he spoke about in plenty of detail was the game’s pacing.
“We really wanted to bring a more tactical pace to the game,” Bunting said. “From game to game, we’ve just gotten faster and faster and faster. Like, Black Ops 3 was probably the pinnacle of how fast we can get in this franchise. It’s like, where do you go from there? We wanted to slow the pace down a little bit without slowing down the player. We wanted to give players opportunities to think a little bit more, to feel that those moments of pacing would allow them to have more tactical decisions that they can make, give them more opportunities to work with your team and have more teamwork.”
“Even if it’s just passively,” he continued. “A lot of times, you hear the word “teamwork” and you think that the game is forcing you to work together. But it’s not that way at all. It’s just, while playing the game, you’re going to be passively helping your team. So these were some of our big overarching goals, and that’s why you see the differences that we’ve introduced.”
It should be interesting to see how Black Ops 4 strikes the balance it’s trying to achieve. It’s clear that the game is going to be faster paced than WW2, as a product of its setting, but it’s also cool to see that Treyarch are trying to introduce tactical elements in the game as well. It remains to be seen how that will work out in terms of execution, though, especially in something like a battle royale mode.