Update: This is all true and Treyarch is skipping the traditional campaign in favor of more Zombies and Blackout battle royale!
Keen to cash in on the current trend of gaming, wild rumors suggest that Activision’s upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will ditch is classic single-player campaign and instead focus on battle royale gameplay.
With the likes of Fortnite and PUBG taking over in the multiplayer combat and last player standing genre, it makes sense that a franchise that has been running as long as Call of Duty move with the times. While sacrificing the entire story mode of Black Ops 4 may be a bold decision to make, replacing it with a bloodthirsty battle royale is one way to divert attention away from the issue and retain its position as the king of the shooter genre.
Call of Duty aficionado Charlie Intel reports that Black Ops 4’s focus on multiplayer will join the trend of battle royale gaming. Despite previous Activision statements that the series is all about the story campaigns, Raven Software has apparently been tasked with developing a battle royale mode to fill the extensive gap left behind. Sources already claimed that a single-player campaign simply wouldn’t be ready in time for Black Ops 4’s October release, leading to the brainwave of adding battle royale.
Before gamers start slamming Black Ops 4 tangent into the unknown, let’s remember that its predecessor also shipped without a campaign for PS3 and Xbox 360’s feature-limited version. Activision hasn’t unveiled the sales report for the multiplayer only Black Ops 3, but if No.4. is also moving without a single-player mode, its absence the first time around can’t have been that detrimental. Activision said only last month that it was aware how well battle royale games are doing right now, so the company is clearly listening to what the fans what. The tagline for the upcoming game is “forget what you know,” which has a certain sense of irony as the longest-running Call of Duty subfranchise looks to chart new territory.
These days, gamers literally can’t move without stumbling into some sort of battle royale game grabbing headlines, while even Rockstar’s upcoming Red Dead Redemption 2 is rumored to feature a battle royale mode. Interestingly, Black Ops 4 shifting focus onto battle royale will almost certainly mean that leading rivals like Battlefield V will have to follow suit. It may be great for those who love cramming 100 players into an ever-decreasing deathmatch, but for fans of more traditional gameplay, the battle royale market feels a little saturated right now. Either way, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 heading to PC , PS4, and Xbox One on October 12, it looks like Activision has the battle royale genre firmly in its crosshairs.
Update: Kotaku sources confirm this to be the case, that a battle royale mode will be included instead of a standard Call of Duty campaign for Black Ops 4. This will likely be revealed mid-May at a Call of Duty event and we’ll know more then.
More: Rumor: The Division Developer is Making a Battle Royale Game
Source: Charlie Intel
