Blackout mode is an absolute winner
DESPITE some hardcore gamer’s ire at the proliferation of Battle Royale modes in shooter games, the sheen of a game mode that has broken the Team Deathmatch/Capture The Flag status quo has yet to wear off for most. The trendy new mode has seen near-innumerable copycats from a host of indie developers, but had yet to receive the AAA treatment until the release of Call of Duty Black Ops 4’s Blackout supplementary multiplayer mode.
While Black Ops 4 is a game in its own right, the Multiplayer, Zombies and Blackout game modes are so big that they warrant reviewing separately. To be quite frank, the Multiplayer and Zombies modes are your typical Call of Duty fodder with a few bells and whistles thrown into the mix.
The Blackout mode, however, is astonishingly fun and, bar Fortnite, the most polished Battle Royale game to date. The most important thing that Blackout gives when compared to its peers in the genre is momentum.
Most other Battle Royales feature so much downtime that fights and skirmishes often devolve into sheepish wait-a-thons. Blackout is more silky and fluid, committing the cardinal sins of allowing healing while running, shooting underwater and the ability to fire your weapon while using other equipment, as if you were an octopus and not a human. Oddly, all of these combine to provide a much faster gameplay experience, akin to Call of Duty’s famously snappy multiplayer.
Unfortunately, where Blackout feels truly and utterly sluggish by comparison to its competitors is in looting and inventory management. Proximity looting is bizzarly non-existent, nor can you rearrange your inventory in any way, making for an annoyingly clunky looting experience. Blackout’s loot is sheer brilliance and – not to sound overly-critical – surprisingly inventive for a Call of Duty title. Grappling guns, sensor darts, acid bombs and barricades all evoke equipment types from the Rainbow 6 games, albeit useful on a much larger scale.
The equipment provided in Blackout is an exhaustive list and a phenomenal way of changing tactics and strategy in both early and late circles. Call of Duty Black Ops’s 4 Blackout is absolutely brilliant and, although it pains to say it, Blackout alone makes purchasing the full title worth it.