Call of Duty Black Ops 4 Blackout Player Count May Be Higher Than We Thought

While a lot of things seen in the latest Black Ops 4 reveal stream were expected, some things still caught us by surprise. It had been rumoured that the newest addition to the long running Call of Duty franchise would feature a Battle Royale game type, possibly instead of a traditional campaign, so the inclusion there was not the biggest surprise of the moment. What is surprising was what happened after the reveal stream, where an eagle eyed Twitter user spotted a potentially crucial detail about the upcoming game mode.

The #BlackOps4 BR mode #blackout COULD be 140 players. Watching the trailer you can see yellow dots become blue shield with skulls indicating an elimination. @charlieINTEL pic.twitter.com/K0l9sCM1px

— Brodie Cromar (@Brodizzleee) May 17, 2018

That’s right, we could be looking at a Battle Royale game that has more than 100 players running, gunning, and generally causing mayhem across the map. GameSpot managed to pin down Treyarch studio design director David Vonderhaar and question him on the details of the player count, revealing that “We haven't actually decided, we have to create the best experience, and to create that experience in a Call of Duty universe, you have to try various flavors of that until you find the right one.”

The game mode has been described as Battle Royale done “the Black Ops way”, with a map size boasted to be 1500 times larger than Nuketown, possibly the most beloved and iconic map of the Black Ops franchise. While the exact details aren’t yet revealed, we’ve had a crack at figuring out how big the zone might end up being. While the results may point to the square footage being not quite as big as some might have expected, the multilevel aspect of the game can’t be ignored, and if you’re potentially throwing in up to 140 players into the mix, it’s going to get real hectic, real fast.