Bandwagon Battle Royale: Call Of Duty Black Ops 4 Blackout Over Campaign?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has been revealed, a grand spectacle presented by Treyarch at a community event earlier today. We saw what Treyarch Chairman Mark Lamia called the “three pillars” of the game: multiplayer, Zombies, and the new Battle Royale mode called Blackout. Call of Duty fans have a lot to look forward to... for the most part. It seems battle royale has put a Blackout on Call of Duty’s signature campaign mode, leaving those looking for a story with their shooties nothing more than an “expanded narrative universe” in the multiplayer game.

I understand the move, it’s Call of Duty trying to put their spin on the hot new trend in video games, but I’m still hesitant about it. The Battle Royale genre is still in its infancy, a place where we don’t know if it’s actually going to stick around. Is it going to revolutionize the shooter genre, or is it going to go the way of the music game genre like Guitar Hero? We still don’t know, despite Fortnite and PUBG’s immense popularity. Activision hitching its car to the battle royale train could end up being the best Call of Duty decision in years or end up as just another flash in the pan.

That said, the approach Treyarch is taking to battle royale with Blackout is very smart. Building their map from pieces of pre-existing Black Ops maps, while allowing players to play as their favorite characters from the Black Ops and Zombies series, makes a lot of sense. It also serves as a terrific way to get the Call of Duty diehards that haven’t ventured into Fortnite yet into the genre for the first time. If you’re going to try and sell your established franchise joining the latest fad, particularly without showing any gameplay for it, nostalgia is the way to go.

There’s another big part of what makes Fortnite so popular that Black Ops 4 isn’t going to be able to match: Fortnite is free. While buying skins and Battle Passes is indeed a thing, I can download Fortnite and play it at no cost if I so choose. PUBG, the game that started this phenomenon, can’t even say that, and I’d argue that’s the main reason Fortnite surpassed it. Black Ops 4 does have history and nostalgia on its side, but Fortnite’s lack of price tag is a hurdle not even memories of yore will be able to overcome. Let’s hope the gameplay can deliver.

As interesting as Blackout sounds, the old-fashioned gamer in me hates to see the Call of Duty single-player campaign be sacrificed in favor of it. Admittedly I am not the greatest first-person shooter player in the entire world. My reflexes at 31 are not what they used to be at 21, and I don’t have the time to dedicate to getting better at it. Obviously that’s not the game’s fault, but it did color my interest in previous Call of Duty games. I played for the campaign, I played to be told a story, and I’m not going to get that this time.

Granted, the community reveal did stress that story and narrative is still a part of the Call of Duty experience. One of the trailers for multiplayer showed some of the “expanded narrative experience,” giving us some speech about how “they” will use us and exploit us and leave us for dead. The Zombies mode has two completely bonkers storylines, on top of another teased, but there’s no telling if they will be chapter-based (which I assume not) or if they’ll follow the previous Zombies formats (which I assume it will). Other campaign-only players -- which I do acknowledge are the minority of the CoD fanbase -- might not like Zombies and don’t want to have to depend on that mode for a Call of Duty “campaign.” The reveal did its best to temper the revelation of no pure single-player with its emphasis on “expanded narrative,” but I could tell immediately that a pure CoD campaign wasn’t coming.

I completely understand Activision and Treyarch jumping onto the Bandwagon Royale. It’s a hot format with millions of players, and they are confident that their legacy can make them the new leader in the genre. I just wish they didn’t remove a part of the franchise that’s been around since its infancy in the process. Perhaps down the line we’ll get a downloadable campaign (or Blackout should have been DLC maybe?), but I worry that single player Call of Duty is a thing of the past. Unfortunately for me and the campaigners like me, that may mean our exit from the series. Let’s see if Battlefield V wants us when it’s revealed next week.