Today at an event in Los Angeles, developer Treyarch put on a show to reveal new info about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, which will be out October 12 for PC (on Battle.net), PS4, and Xbox One. Seems like this will be a break from traditional Call of Duty in a whole lot of ways, as we expected.
At the event, Treyarch confirmed that the fourth Black Ops will not have a campaign. Instead, the studio describes Black Ops 4 as having three pillars: multiplayer, zombies, and Blackout, the new battle royale mode that marks Call of Duty’s first foray into the world of Fortnite and PUBG.
“Black Ops 4 doesn’t have a traditional campaign,” said Treyarch boss Mark Lamia. “We’re weaving narrative into each of the modes.”
As we saw in the game’s “multiplayer reveal” trailer, there are health bars (!) and health regeneration won’t be automatic. Instead, you’ll have to heal yourself—or rely on Crash, a medic who can restore other players’ health, hero-shooter-style. Watch the trailer here:
It looks a whole lot like Overwatch, which is why it was interesting to see the Overwatch team make an appearance in a pre-recorded video, played during the event, to talk about how Blizzard worked with Treyarch to get Black Ops 4 on Battle.net for PC.
There will be no thrust jumping or wall running, a major shift from other recent futuristic Call of Dutys like Black Ops III and Advanced Warfare, which were disliked among some fans.
Zombies mode will also look significantly different, with a whole bunch of custom options and modes as well as what appear to be mini-campaigns with a variety of tones. There’s one in a gladiator arena and another on a cruise ship that appears to be the Titanic, and it’s all very confusing. Here are all the trailers: