The Call of Duty series has, at this point, been around seemingly forever. Getting its start as a relatively unremarkable PC-exclusive some fifteen years ago, it has exploded into a massive, billion-dollar franchise which lies at the very heart of the gaming populace’s consciousness. For better or worse, there is no denying that it is an industry landmark which has molded and shaped the framework of its competition since the release of 2007’s hallmark PFS Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It hasn’t always been great since then—the series has surely seen its fair share of ups and downs—yet, on the whole, Call of Duty usually offers something for gamers to sink their teeth into year in and year out.
Multiplayer wasn’t a required feature in most FPS titles until Activision’s famous franchise managed to make it a genre mainstay. Though trends have shifted slightly, plenty of IPs, both new and old, rushed to include an arcadey multiplayer element in a rough attempt to chase Call of Duty’s legacy.
That said, it seems that Activision and Treyarch may be trying to sneak a slice of someone else’s pie with the introduction of the new Blackout mode—a mode which by-and-large seeks to imitate the dominant games of the day. We’ve heard plenty of rumors surrounding the upcoming Black Ops 4, and even had our hands on a beta or two, but, though we’ve figured some of them out for ourselves, there are still a few rumors we hope aren’t quite true.
20 Confirmed: No More Health Regen
Less-casual gamers have long disliked the system by which injured participants in Call of Duty’s multiplayer can magically heal themselves after a few seconds outside of combat. Though realism is typically thrown way out the window in most CoD titles, that isn’t to say that players don’t enjoy at least some semblance of reality in their games. The multiplayer mode available in Black Ops 4 looks to take a page out of Battlefield’s playbook by forcing players to heal manually. This should add an extra layer of depth to the gameplay while simultaneously making shootouts that much more dangerous.
19 Don’t Want: The Status Quo Of (Bad) DLC Pack
Despite the video game industry by-and-large moving away from the traditional season pass content delivery method, Activision Blizzard doesn’t seem all that interested in innovation at the cost of their bottom line. While games like Battlefield V and Fortnite dole out content slowly over the course of their life cycles, Black Ops 4 will, unfortunately, be sticking to the stagnant method of delivering four DLC packs and calling it quits. While players are certain to receive a few inconsequential content updates in between these major releases, it is a disappointing move for everyone hoping to stick with the game long after its shelf life has expired.
18 Confirmed: Battle Royale
Everyone and their mother is now aware that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be shaking things up by ditching the traditional single-player campaign mode and adding a battle royale multiplayer event—in fact, most of us have probably played the Blackout beta by now. We now know what this new mode is all about, and it seems to err on the side of PUBG than Fortnite. Blending the hardcore, no-nonsense gameplay of the former game with the cartoonish, whimsical atmosphere of the latter, blackout seems to have set itself up to be the best of both worlds.
17 Don’t Want: Ditching Local Multiplayer
Ever since online play became nearly mandatory during the seventh console generation, games have slowly strayed away from the traditional couch co-op experience. That isn’t to say that the industry as a whole has stopped producing proper co-op content—in fact, Black Ops III went so far as to include local co-op for the PC port, which is just about unheard of—but it’s the sort of feature which Black Ops 4 may well be lacking without. Solo play can be fun to a point, but there are certainly players who will feel a bit left out if their roommates can’t get in on the action on the same console.
16 Confirmed: No More Lone Wolf Gameplay (Team Play Is Crucial)
The Call of Duty series has long lived in the shadow of Battlefield’s more squad-focused gameplay. Delivering a sense of cohesion and realism that the CoD games seemed to be sorely lacking, Black Ops 4 looks to finally be placing an emphasis on team-centric tactics over lone wolf, run-and-gun gameplay. Players now have slightly more health than they did in previous titles, which means that a single player won’t be able to spray down a group of enemies in one fell swoop. Savvy players will stick together to accomplish their objectives, rather than simply split up and hope for the best.
15 Don’t Want: Fortnite: Black Ops Edition
Black Ops 4’s recent Blackout beta revealed that, despite borrowing many mechanics from previously-established battle royale titles, the mode will certainly have its own unique flair. Yet, tons of things can change in the time remaining between now and the game’s launch on the twelfth of October, and some of those changes could be for the worse. Even the slightest gameplay tweaks could drastically affect the overall feel of the mode, and very few players want to lay down a full sixty dollars to purchase an inferior copy of a product they may otherwise have gotten for free.
14 Confirmed: The Same (Lame) Class System
We now know that Specialist classes—a mechanic by which players may utilize a character’s individual skills to change the course of battle—will be making a return from Black Ops III. The issue here is that, in the previous Black Ops title, the system didn’t feel quite as fleshed out as it could have. Most of the specialists simply held special, powerful weapons which players could access two to three times per match on average. It would be nice to see Treyarch take a fresh approach to this system and work out a few of the design flaws which caused it to lose its luster after a few play sessions.
13 Don’t Want: Black Ops Pass
Activision’s strict adhesion to the traditional method of rolling out DLC has already been mentioned, though it is made doubly worse by the fact that many titles no longer ask for money up front for extra content. With plenty of its competitors offering subsequent content updates for free, the introduction of the Black Ops Pass actually caused something of a minor PR disaster for a publisher which, at one time, seemed to be in tune with consumer interests. The Black Ops Pass is likely to divide the community and destroy player numbers soon after the launch of the game’s first DLC pack, which isn’t something anyone wants to see.
12 Confirmed: No More Campaign Mode
Once again, the Call of Duty faithful have known for some time now that Treyarch’s Black Ops 4 would be ditching the traditional single-player component in favor of the new Blackout battle royale mode. This, in the minds of many, comes across as more than a little lazy, especially since the new mode seems to be little more than previously-designed Call of Duty maps scattered around a fairly generic sub-tropical landscape. The developers have stated that narrative elements will still be present in zombies and, to some extent, in multiplayer, though it is difficult to imagine these aspects providing the equivalent of full-on solo campaigns.
11 Don’t Want: Can’t Pick The Same Specialist Every Map
This seems to be a deliberate decision to even the playing field, as teams comprised entirely of one or two specific specialist classes could be devastatingly imbalanced. That said, some players aren’t totally thrilled with Treyarch’s decision to assign one specialist to one player per multiplayer team without allowing for duplicates. This means that players could be stuck hopping in and out of matches in an attempt to play as the specialist they would actually prefer. Imagine if Team Fortress 2 locked players into specific roles and classes. The two games may not exactly be analogous, but its a decision which Treyarch may well want to reconsider.
10 Confirmed: Back Boots On The Ground (Like Last Year)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare may have been the first in the series to take embrace a modern day setting, but, ten years on, gamers are quickly growing sick of the cutting-edge warfare scenario. Worse still was the far-flug sci-fi takes on the franchise fans suffered through, most notably in the oft-disliked Infinite Warfare. Fortunately, excluding a few rare specialist maneuverability options, Black Ops 4 looks to be a mostly boots on the ground affair. Fans have expressed their disdain for futuristic CoD titles, and it appears that, after the relative misfire that was WWII, Activision seems to be on the right path.
9 Don’t Want: Loot Boxes
It is no secret that loot boxes and similarly awful monetization practices are quickly draining gamers patience, bank accounts, and sanity. With dozens of European countries and several U.S. states slowly catching on to this duplicitous money-making method, the inclusion of such schemes in Black Ops 4 would be a terrible move by Activision Blizzard. That said, the company was slow to revert their much-maligned loot boxes in the popular hero shooter Overwatch, and their greed may once again obscure their will to create an enjoyable, legally sound experience. Time will tell if the publisher will have the gall to include these terrible practices, and all CoD fans can do in the meantime is hold their breath and hope for the best.
8 Confirmed: Zombies In Battle Royale
Treyarch proved that they could adapt the popular battle royale genre and make it their own in the blackout beta, which saw the inclusion of the series-famous zombie horde. It was great to see theses intimidating A.I. creatures rear their ugly, rotten heads, and it added an extra element to the mode which rarely appears in similar games. Plus, though Treyarch previously stated that there would be no boss-type zombies in the game, they included an all-new zombie type called The Blightfather, which is scheduled to make its proper debut in the upcoming zombies maps IX and Voyage of Despair.
7 Don’t Want: Poor PC Port
Though the Call of Duty franchise continues to sell well on consoles with each annual release, the same cannot be said regarding sales on the PC. Activision seems to regard the platform as something of an afterthought, and most CoD titles which have landed on Steam have been sub-par console ports at best. This is apparently set to change, as the shift over to Blizzard’s Battle.net will apparently come with a boost in PC port performance. The Blackout beta ran like an absolute dream for most PC players, and it seems like the development team may stick to their word, though it would be tragic to see the full release return to the underwhelming quality of previous CoD titles on PC.
6 Confirmed: Wunderwaffe
Zombies weren’t the only facet of Treyarch’s famous Call of Duty horde mode to be introduced to the series’ new battle royale playlist: zombies-exclusive wonder weapons have also made an appearance, alongside an all-new weapon with which fans have yet to familiarize themselves. The MP-40, the Zweihander, and the ever-popular Ray Gun will be available when Blackout launches alongside Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 in October, and all three seem to be totally devastating. What’s more, the previously zombies-exclusive random weapon box has found its way to blackout, which will help zombies players feel at home in the mode as well as offer up some truly fearsome armament.
5 Don’t Want: A Bad “Live” Service (Like Last Year)
The term “Live Service” may be a bit of a maligned buzzword around the video game industry today, though it does come with a few upsides. Though games touting such service models tend to be jam-packed with awful microtransaction-based content, they also receive regular updates and occasional free extra content. Sledgehammer Games, the studio behind last year’s Call of Duty: WWII, did an excellent job of providing frequent updates, community events, and DLC. With this in mind, it would be a shame to see Treyarch revert to the traditional method of dropping four major DLC packs with very little content in between. CoD fans love major content releases, though the studio will need to provide additional support in between these events.
4 Confirmed: A Walk Down Memory Lane
Though fans were told early on that Blackout would serve as a celebration of the previous fan-favorite, Call of Duty content, it was, to some, a bit disappointing to see that the mode was little more than a series of old multiplayer maps roughly thrown into a relatively boring Mediterranean biome. While a neat idea, the execution was a bit lacking, and it would have been nice to see these features implemented with a bit more precision. That said, battle royale fans will still be able to get their gameplay fix, which is, at the end of the day, all that really matters.
3 Don’t Want: The Vessel For Maxis, The Opening Of The Gateway…
Shadows of Evil, Call of Duty: Black Ops III’s only on-disc zombies experience, quickly become a fan-favorite map. While it triumphed and innovated in plenty of areas, there were certainly a few drawbacks, most notably the cryptic nature of certain vital gameplay elements. Players were essentially asked to complete a miniature Easter egg in order to upgrade their weapons, which turned many new players away from the mode altogether. Some veteran zombie slayers loved the decision, though many grew tired of the increased complexity of the mode. Treyarch is virtually guaranteed to hit it out of the park when it comes to Black Ops 4 zombies, though it would be nice to see the reliance on complex narrative and ridiculous Easter egg steps dialed back just a bit.
2 Confirmed: Four Zombies Maps At Launch
Though the previously mentioned Shadows of Evil was a big hit among members of the Call of Duty zombies community, it was a little disappointing to see Treyarch release naught but one original map when the game first launched. They eventually delivered in spades through the game’s DLC season and subsequent Zombies Chronicles expansion, though the initial lack of maps caused initial interest in the mode to stagnate. This almost certainly won’t be the case with Black Ops 4, as Treyarch saw fit to launch with a total of three on-disc maps, with a fourth made available for Black Ops Pass owners.
1 Don’t Want: Emotes, Skins, And Diluted Content
The aforementioned games-as-services trend has popularized the method by which tons of emotes and skins for both weapons and characters are introduced to the game and earned via loot box. While this is yet to be a confirmed element of the upcoming Call of Duty release, it would be a shame to see yet another multiplayer FPS title bogged down by an absolute litany of annoying, oversaturated emotes and skins. It may appeal to a younger audience, but the ability to make a character dab in a multiplayer lobby shouldn’t have players reaching for their wallets.
