Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (for PC) Preview

Like millions of other gamers, I became enamored with Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) last year.

It truly popularized the battle royale genre, even if it's since been overtaken by Fortnite.

PUBG offers a more militaristic setting and simulation-style action than Epic's smash hit, but even its biggest fans will admit to some janky gameplay with bug- and cheat-riddled servers.

As a result, many heads turned when the seasoned developers at Treyarch announced the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 would include its own battle royale mode called Blackout.

Treyarch released a Blackout beta on PC, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, for a brief period this month, allowing me to explore their take on the phenomenon.

While Blackout has some kinks to work out in terms of gameplay balance, it looks like a very promising genre entry that can scratch the realism-focused itch like PUBG—but with AAA developer polish.

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Platform Preferences

Call of Duty has always had its roots on console, even though its entries are widely available on PC.

PUBG and Fortnite are both PC-first games in development priority and in terms of ideal control schemes, setting Black Ops 4 up to potentially be the best battle royale title designed for consoles from the jump.

With that in mind, I played Blackout on both PC and PS4.

For playing on PC, the game requires at least an Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB of memory, a Nvidia GTX 660/1050 or AMD Radeon HD 7850 graphics card, and 256GB of storage space.

For optimal performance, the developers recommend at least an Intel Core i7-4770K CPU, 12GB of memory, and a GTX 1060 GPU.

The standard edition is priced at the usual $59.99 for all platforms.

Simply put, Blackout is much better on PC than consoles.

For example, navigating the inventory system, a prominent mechanic in battle royale games, is clunkier with a controller than with a mouse and keyboard.

Even with the game's relatively streamlined user interface, you're still much more vulnerable to enemies when moving gear and attachments around on console than on PC.

Looting is also a chore with a controller—looking down onto the ground for gear and back up to eye level is clumsy and holding down a button to grab loot feels slow.

Finally, the draw distance on PS4 makes it difficult to see very far beyond roughly 30 yards; the game blurs anything beyond that to keep the frame rates smooth.

Compare all of this to the PC version, which draws the environment as far as your hardware can handle.

Looting in-game items and swapping parts in your inventory is also much easier on PC, and will save you from unnecessary exposure.

That said, the main Call of Duty fanbase is still firmly connected to consoles and I have no doubt the game will reach the many millions of happy players on those systems.

Blackout is more playable than either Fortnite (building is especially difficult with a controller) or the Xbox One version of PUBG.

It also runs very well and at smooth frame rate, thanks in part to the draw distance limitation, which is pretty crucial for such a fast-paced game.

Thus, console players don't need to worry about buying or building a gaming PC to get good performance (though, if you're able, you should).

It's Definitely Battle Royale

Simply put, Treyarch hasn't done too much experimenting with the battle royale formula.

Dozens of players drop out of an airborne vehicle onto a large land mass with no gear, scramble into buildings to grab guns and armor, and try to kill everyone else in a bid to be the last man (or team) standing.

There are a variety of weapons for different combat scenarios, be it the close quarters of hallways, the medium distances across streets, or the many long outdoor sight lines.

If you're not familiar with Call of Duty's weapon names, you won't really know which weapons to use in each situation at first.

My advice is to pay attention to the weapon names and do some old-fashioned trial and error testing.

You also need to experiment with other components, such as scopes and grips, before understanding which weapon combos to run.

The circle mechanic is also fully intact, with essentially no alterations compared to its contemporaries.

If you're unfamiliar, battle royale games include a randomized play radius that gets smaller and smaller as the match progresses.

If you stand outside of the play zone, you consistently take damage and eventually die.

This forces the decreasing number of players into a smaller area until there's only one standing.

The design prevents long-term camping (unless you get very lucky and the circle keeps homing in on the building you holed up in), adds a time pressure element, and ultimately forces the game to end.

Though most of the mechanics follow the genre blueprint, there are a few twists.

A big one is that Treyarch cleverly uses well-known past Call of Duty maps for the individual settlements in Blackout.

Instead of a random complex of buildings, the Nuketown Island area is laid out like the classic map Nuketown, the Hydro Dam area after the map Hydro, and so on.

It's a smart way to both make fans feel more excited and connected to the game, while leaning on Call of Duty's existing collection of well-designed and already-vetted map layouts.

These areas are connected by rolling green hills, some water, and plenty of roads.

Even if the game has a fairly generic military theme, the bespoke map regions are graphically superior and have more character than PUBG's locations.

Part of that superiority is the improvement of graphics over time, but the polish afforded by a AAA developer can't be understated.

It looks and plays like a big-budget game striving for realism, as opposed to the clunky animation, models, and textures found in even the latest versions of PUBG.

Another difference is the 80-player cap, as opposed to the standard 100-player limit for other battle royale games.

This is not final, though, and even during the beta, that limit ramped up to 88 and ended at 100.

Blackout, too, may launch with 100 players in each match, if the servers, consoles, and pace of gameplay can handle it.

Finally, some items and extras mix things up further.

The other games include vehicles, but Blackout lets you fly a helicopter, and like Fortnite (Free at Epic Games) , it includes a grappling hook item to zip up buildings.

There are also zombies—yes, actual zombies, an ode to Call of Duty's standalone Zombies game mode—waiting to pounce in a specific area of the map.

PUBG has a zombie-specific mode where players control zombies against other players, but they aren't built in to the standard matches.

Fast-Paced Fun

Call of Duty's Blackout mode is indeed fun to play, though there is certainly room for improvement.

That's to be expected from a beta, but the updates the developers pushed out thus far have been promising.

It seems like Treyarch is listening to feedback, which is vital for such a community-driven type of game, and adjusting the game in the right direction.

The gameplay is very fast paced, but that's standard for Call of Duty, which features shorter than average time-to-kill among shooters.

Often, gunfights come down to who sees who first, with limited opportunities to outshoot the other players if you're already taking shots.

That's still true of the gameplay, though you seem to have a bit more health than traditional Call of Duty matchmaking.

I think that suits the game well, and the smooth performance and attractive visuals only add to tense gunfights.

Armor is one of the aspects that needs tweaking most—players wearing good armor they found on the ground really can take a few too many shots—but this is something the developers said they will continue to play with as launch approaches.

The speed of the game also significantly affects how the healing and reviving mechanics work.

In PUBG and even Fortnite, resurrecting your teammate takes about 10 seconds; a risky amount of time to be standing still.

In Blackout, you can revive players in about three seconds, which feel nearly instantaneous by comparison.

It makes knock-downs feel less meaningful, since going for a revive is much less risky as you won't be immobile for too long.

But, since reviving is so quick, it does give players incentive to be aggressive for kills on players they've knocked down.

This is risky in its own right, since peeking out to finish a kill can result in surviving teammates punishing you.

The deployment time of healing items is similarly quick, allowing you to roll off several bandages and even use first aid kits in no time at all.

I'd adjust these usage times to be a bit longer, but I can see where keeping them on the quick side fits the high-tempo gameplay.

Though the pace of the action is quicker, Blackout is still a battle royale game, so when you're not in combat there can absolutely be some long downtime until you fight again.

If you're far from the next circle, expect the same quiet (and tense) march through the fields as in PUBG.

This atmosphere is somewhat lacking in Fortnite, partially due to the cartoonish aesthetic, but also since you can throw down your own cover at any moment if bullets suddenly fly in your direction, providing a sense of safety.

Fortnite Killer? Not Quite

All told, Blackout is as good, or better, than most were hoping.

The promise of a well-polished battle royale game from a big developer seems well on its way to becoming a reality, even if it won't replace the other two main alternatives.

Fortnite is still a very different experience due to its visual style, third-person shooting, and, of course, the building mechanic.

Fortnite is also free to play, of course, as opposed to Blackout, which is just one mode of a full-price title.

PUBG may have more to fear from Blackout in terms of siphoning players away, but I expect they can co-exist.

Blackout shares the military realism aspect, yes, but it's still faster-paced and more arcade-like, with features like a grappling hook, flyable helicopters, and zombies tucked away on the map.

PUBG remains more tactical and considered, but Blackout's polish and AAA developer-backed support may be more appealing.

I think Call of Duty fans will sink time into the Blackout mode, like Zombies in past titles, and believe it is a worthwhile justification for buying the multiplayer-only Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 package.