Guns Up!
While the main star of Black Ops 4 will undoubtedly be the “Blackout” battle royale mode, the game will also feature a more traditional multiplayer suite. Activision revealed a lot of specifics about how guns will handle and some other various tweaks they are making to the flow of combat. Most of this went completely over my head, but here is a general list of the changes you can expect in Black Ops 4.
A big selling point for Black Ops 4 is that your character will always be “guns up.” This means that whatever action you are doing, you will still have access to your gun. Want to throw a grenade? You won’t have to put your weapon down or stop firing. This isn’t even limited to items, since you can vault walls and still shoot. To that effect, wall running and thrust jumping are no longer present.
The game will see the return of Black Ops 3’s specialist classes. These characters (who look oddly reminiscent of Rainbow Six Siege) will have specific actions exclusive to them. One guy, Firebreak, can set himself on fire for some reason and the other classes will have unique abilities that can be deployed in the heat of battle (such as a barricade or ground pound). I wonder if this will replace killstreaks, which weren’t mentioned at all.
The biggest change has to be that health regeneration will no longer be automatic. Players will now need to manually trigger the effect, which could help to make the combat feel more tactical. Bullets will have fully 3D rendered tracers, so you’ll be better able to identify where they are coming from. Weapons are also getting an overhaul and will feature attachments specific to them instead of just weapon class. You won’t be able to pop an ACOG scope on every single AR in the game anymore.
The last addition is the return of “League Play” to Call of Duty. This was present in Black Ops 2 and was used to better match players with opponents of similar skill. Instead of just going by general level, which is earned from XP after matches, League Play assigns you a rank based on your Win/Loss ratio. You can even get demoted to a lower league if you lose too often, which should better separate more skilled players from the rest.
Whether or not these changes will matter in the presence of a battle royale mode is yet to be seen, but I like the dedication Activision is taking. It would be so easy to just throw the same crap up again, but a lot of these changes sound like trying to evolve Call of Duty beyond what is has been for years. Color me intrigued.
