It’s getting to be about that time again, where we throw everything out of the windows in favour of levelling up with the rest of the Call of Duty fans. Black Ops IV is set to deliver on its multiplayer, as usual, but it is the new Blackout battle royale mode that really has our attention this year.
There’s a beta test of the all-new mode kicking off, hard, next week with PlayStation gamers first in line for some battle royale action. Up till now we haven’t seen an awful lot of what’s going to be involved but Activision and developer Treyarch have finally seen fit to release a proper Blackout gameplay trailer out into the world.
And there’s a lot to see packed into just over 120 seconds. If we’re going to take this trailer literally, players are going to be dropped into the action via helicopter, using wingsuits (which look to be usable aside from just the initial drop) to pick their landing spot. Weapons will be available on the ground, with a little randomness thrown in for good measure — should help promote the idea that you need to be good with more than just one gun type.
We’ve also gotten a look at vehicular combat, from boats and choppers to ATVs — all quite nimble little vehicles. Should be fun strapping some C4 to an ATV and launching it into an enemy hardpoint for a little explosive surprise.
Speaking of surprised, we also noticed a few zombies popping up in the game. We were wondering how Activision was going to be herding players in to a central point from the collection of familiar locations and we suspect that a zombie invasion might be the mechanism. A voice is heard saying “Further collapse expected, evac to safe zone” — this could indicate that zombies will steadily take over the outer edges of the gameplay area, forcing players ahead of them. This is just speculation on our part, there could be a whole other mechanic involved.
We’ll know a whole lot more once we’re done getting hands-on time with Blackout early next week. Stick around for our first impressions of the new mode.
Source: Activision (YouTube)